Potterings Blog

My People Gardener philosophy has always been based around developing your authentic self - the person who looks out at the world through your eyes. Your strength is in your personal mix of natural talents, passions and potential to contribute something new and different to the world. 

The trouble is, life gets in the way, diverting us in directions we think an economic rationalist world demands us to take if we are to survive.

Through all of this however, your unchanging authentic self is your natural energising resource that drives your personal growth, resilience and enjoyment of life.

The natural way to be in charge of your life's direction is to assert your authentic self. More than just strengthening your ability to cope with whatever comes your way, it's the way to positively create the next chapter in your life.

There is little doubt that we humans like to make things complicated. We think of all the pluses and minuses on issues, the potentials and the drawbacks and, based on our best knowledge, we come to a decision.

Ask a child and you will get a direct answer – and so often it's the best answer.   We men dismiss women’s use of intuition but again so often it produces the right answer.

For example, who is your clientele? You do surveys, talk to lots of people, sort the answers and still you’re not sure you have come up with the right target market. Who’s bought your product/service lately? Isn’t that your target market?

Ok I am simplifying complex issues – which is exactly my point.

In much the same way as the positive point of view is often seen as unrealistic so doing and saying things as simply as possible is dismissed as being “too simplistic”.

Watch any other part of nature (yes we are a part of nature, not above it) and it will simply do what it does do well.  It just follows the law of nature and flourishes – unless of course we complicate things because we think we know better (have you checked lately what we are doing to nature??).

Television advertising promotes its products to the 8-year-old mentality. Those that don’t leave us wondering “what was that all about?”

Next time you need to make a decision, compare the simple “go with your gut feeling” (the male version of intuition?) option with your researched complex analysis option.  I suggest over time your gut decisions serve you better than the complex analysis decisions.  Would you agree?

I have just noticed the following review (the 3rd one) on amazon.com regarding my book "The Hunger to Grow":

"Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars This book was the first to point me in the right direction to find happiness in the second half of my life, January 9, 2017 
By Amazon Customer
This review is from: The Hunger to Grow: How to Enjoy the Dessert Years of Your Life (Paperback)

A breath of fresh air. This book was the first to point me in the right direction to find happiness in the second half of my life. Thank you so much Peter for sharing your thoughts, knowledge and ideas. I'm now eager to read all your books."

Yeahhhh!! 

Have you got your copy yet? It's available in hard copy, audio (my voice) and ebook at amazon.com (the US site)  And please put a review on the site after you have read it (I can show you how if you have trouble inserting your review). I am totally confident your review will be positive because every bit of feedback I have had so far from many readers has been totally positive.

Always enjoy allowing the real you to shine through.

Ageing, old, over the hill, or suggesting my life-glass is steadily emptying are all energy-draining words. I relate better to the big bang theory of the universe continuously expanding. Energy drives that process. Energy also drives the growth of nature and certainly energy drives my growth as a person.

It doesn't just happen of course. Personal energy is released each time I express my natural-born talents and follow my passions. The experience triggers an energising chain-reaction, linking with all of the other energising moments I have experienced over my lifetime to date.   Oddly perhaps, it builds a pattern, bringing together everything that will help me realize my unique life potential.

The bonus is that this process also gives me the inner strength and resilience to work through the tough times.

It's working for me. How about you? Your comments (below) are welcome.

May 2017 be a truly energising, life-expanding year for you and yours.

The world is crying out for people of integrity. People you trust, whose word is their bond. People who enjoy the life they were born to live, developing their natural talents and following their passions in the cause of a better world.

Ever since I re-invented myself as a lifestyle mentor in 2003 my core theme has been to enjoy being your true self. It’s the cornerstone of everything I do, say and write. An unchangeable principle in an otherwise ever-changing world.

The fact that I have had so many subscribers to my newsletters throughout my 15 years inthis business says a great deal in these days of email information overload. A friend recently told me, “Peter you are a person of integrity who sells integrity in your messages”.   A compliment that I humbly accept, knowing enjoying being your true self is a rock on which all meaningful advances in life are founded.

Allow yourself the freedom to enjoy being your true self no matter what life throws at you. It’s your right to enjoy being true to your real self. It‘s what makes you a person of integrity. 

If you would like to join my list of subscribers, click on the subscription option to the right of this page.  Especially so if you are looking to take a new direction that will enable you to live your life on your terms.

Last night I was privileged to see the wonderful Australian documentary film When We Sing. The hauntingly beautiful song Never Turning Back (by Pat Humphries) behind the credits rounded off the film’s powerful message that music inspires us to enjoy the fullness of life in all its glory.

There have been times in my life (as I’m sure in yours) where I have thought about going back to a situation or a person that I left behind for whatever reasons. Sometimes it was a situation outside of my control, the passing of which left me sad and wishing it didn’t have to end.

The song reminded me that the past is past and cannot be changed. I only have now, from this moment on to value and use beneficially. The value of the past is in what it has taught me about how to deal with the now and the future. It’s a past that I gratefully acknowledge has presented me with unique rich knowledge, experience and wisdom.

The real positives lie in the magnificent uncertainty of what my future still holds, what teachers are still to appear when I, the student, am ready and what doors are waiting for me to open if only I will but knock. I to continue to enjoy playing out my unique role in life with this aim, quoting from my book, The Hunger to Grow:

“You will want to feel that at the end of “Your Life” the rest of the cast and your audience will give you a standing ovation, acknowledging you have given a performance they will never forget”.

A busy time for me lately. Here’s a brief summary:

• Invited to participate in a KPMG Adelaide Workshop on Ageing Well as a precursor to the State Government’s State Forum on Ageing Well.
• My input to the workshop resulted in KPMG inviting me to lead one of the Chat Rooms at the State Forum – my topic was “Re-Inventing Self / Encore Careers”.
• More to come as a result of the Forum. The intensity of discussions clarified the fact that age is irrelevant when it comes to contributing productively to the knowledge and wellbeing of society
• Gave a keynote at the 2016 Disabilities and Ageing Expo in the Goyder Pavilion at the Adelaide Showgrounds over the loudspeaker system. Interesting experience talking to nobody in particular and everyone in general. Was delighted to get enthusiastic applause from a wide area of the Expo including one stand holder coming up to congratulate me on a wonderful presentation.
• Held an “Enjoyment Experience” at The Nest Bistro in suburban Walkerville, with the key event being a Conversation between Nicola Lipscombe of “Powerful Listening” and me. It was a highly successful event in collaboration with The Nest, the Walkerville News Shop and Powerful Listening. While my book “The Hunger to Grow”was the central theme, the event was of benefit in many ways to all the businesses involved. A feature was the production by the Nest of a dessert which was an excellent representation of the book’s cover.
  
• Now in discussion with the Catalyst Foundation, Adelaide to conduct a series of 2-hour workshops on a variety of topics linking Lifestyle and Business.

Lifestyle issues are increasingly affecting business engagement, productivity and mental wellbeing (to mention just a few issues). My approaches are simple, realistic, purposeful and cost effective. Of special value to SME’s. Give me a call on 0417 817 027.

My barber died last Saturday – sudden, unexpected. I had been going to him for some 25 years. The shock and disbelief cut through me. Visiting your regular barber is one of those odd friendships. You see each other only occasionally, your time together often silent, punctuated only with the occasional conversation. The sense of mutual respect peculiar to the relationship between a man and his barber.

My sadness was of course nothing compared to the wave of grief that flooded over his extended Italian family and friends. I turned to what I do best - write. Like a lone wolf baying to the moon, I unloaded my feelings on Facebook. ("More than my Barber").

What happened then was beyond my wildest belief. My post was shared and shared and shared…over 50 times. It reached over 500 people – Paul’s immediate family and their vast enfolding Italian community. “I don’t know you Peter but thank you for your healing words”… “had to share this touching status, thank you Peter”… and the ultimate compliment: “suggested the family print, laminate and display your amazingly appropriate verse…your words are heartfelt and healing”.

Healing. Words that did more than express my feelings. They offered healing to a family and community in their darkest hours of grief and loss … at a time when healing would seem distant.

There are times for each of us when we know why we are on this earth. For me this has been one of the most powerful of them.

Never ever underestimate the healing potential of heartfelt words.

You are the only person in human history with your particular mix of talents and passions. So you have the potential to achieve outcomes that no other person – past, present, or future – can replicate.

An awesome thought. Makes you pretty special - at least in theory. First though…what natural talents do you know you have and use? What passions do you enjoy pursuing? What turns you on in terms of what you do in your life (not just in your work), for what purpose, for whose benefit?

Return on investment (ROI) normally relates to financial investments with the aim of increasing the value and benefits of the investment.  What if you applied the term ROI to the use of your natural-born talents and passions?

The 1930 Australian penny is worth a fortune because there are so few.  Since your talents and passions are unique in human history, imagine the potential of their value to you and to the world – but only if developed and used wisely.

You will finally be valued not for your money or financial success but for the extent to which you have developed, maximized and contributed to others your unique talents, passions and potential. 

It’s never too late to start making a difference. Is the world getting full value from your unique talents and passions? If not, the world is losing something very special that only you could provide.

Enjoy being you 

(NB my email address is now This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

My book The Hunger to Grow will help you make a difference. 

Go to amazon.com to download the audio or ebook version or to order the printed book. Details on my website.

The Enjoyment Factor reminds me of the scene in The Beverley Hillbillies. Granny had created her famous elixir. When asked what it cured, she replied "Watcha got??"

Enjoyment - the moment to moment type of enjoyment and the deeper emotional enjoyment of life - are like Granny's elixir. It's nature's antidote for stress, at work and in personal life. More than that it generates all the energy you need to make the most of your life and talents.

Enjoyment isn't just nice to experience. Any experience you create for enjoyment provides powerful and life-changing improvements to the quality of your mental fitness, your workplace mental health and safety, your workplace culture and your work life harmony (more realistic and cost-effective than work life balance). Importantly, it's what will feed your continuing hunger to grow in your dessert years.

Create your own regular doses of enjoyment every day...a little enjoyment goes a long way and guards you against stress-related illnesses.  It doesn't cost a cent and you can get it anytime from your internal emotional care shop.

And if you/your workplace are having difficulty finding that shop, many previous clients have found my particular "GPS system" very effective! 

For too long there has been a sharp edge dividing work and leisure. While work life balance has become a popular buzzword, most of us feel one is fighting the other for the lion’s share of our time, energy, development and, frankly, our enjoyment of life.

Nature makes no distinction between work and leisure. You naturally always want to enjoy satisfying your insatiable hunger to keep on growing and allowing your potential to blossom. It doesn’t start and stop with your working career.  Typically your fastest spurt of personal growth was in your first five years when all you did was play.

Any interest in which you intrinsically enjoy creatively expressing your talents and passions energises your drive to keep growing. Blurring the sharp edges between work and leisure helps to keep the whole of you growing, not just the working you.

I hope you will enjoy 2016.

"The Enjoyment Factor" will be my 2016 theme. I invite you to journey with me in ensuring 2016 is a year of enjoyment for you, your family, your friends and your work colleauges. I will be offering a range of options if you would like to strengthen The Enjoyment Factor in your life or in your workplace.

How often have you witnessed a great event? An event that has touched your emotions so strongly that the feeling absorbs your mind almost more than the event itself. I felt that way just now when experiencing (not simply watching) that great scene from The King’s Speech (the movie is on YouTube) where the King’s confidence is steadily growing as he delivers his wartime speech without stuttering. Significant for me was the music that flowed gently in the background of the scene, building...building...building as the voice became transformed from “Bertie” the family man to His Royal Highness King George. The music became the voice of the emotion.

Music inspires emotions and emotions can inspire music. Be it the emotions of sadness, triumph, beauty, achievement or joy. In the case of the King's speech, the music conveyed the emotion of overcoming a great struggle and the opening of doors through which he would walk as a great leader.

Next time you experience a significant success or momentous occasion at work, at home, at play or in community life, what music would you love to hear that would give voice to the emotions you are feeling? And any time you feel down, choose some music that would lift you back to being the real you.

I received an email with the link to an old man singing in a city street. He was singing one of the inspirational songs of our times  - “You raise me up”.  I was greatly moved by the song and his glorious mature voice.

But what moved me more – to tears in fact – was the spellbound expressions on the faces of some of the shoppers. I saw people entranced by what they were hearing, seeing and feeling. For those few minutes time for them had stopped.  The strains and stresses of their day swept away, their minds transported  to all that was good in their lives, their feelings and their hearts.

When an experience touches your heart, everything in your world stands still. Save for the feeling that you are in a state of being rather than doing, enjoying the person you love to be, feeling the way you want to feel, knowing that all you want is for this moment to go on and on. 

Of course it cannot go on.  The experience will end and your life will move on.  But the memory will last, a ripple of peace that will flow on through to everything else in your day and your week. 

These are the moments for which you were born and from which you truly grow, flourish and  blossom into the person of worth you know yourself to be.  

Let time stop for you momentarily right now while you click this link and absorb the experience so beautifully created by this wonderful man.

I received an email with the link to an old man singing in a city street. He was singing one of the inspirational songs of our times  - “You raise me up”.  I was greatly moved by the song and his glorious mature voice.

But what moved me more – to tears in fact – was the spellbound expressions on the faces of some of the shoppers. I saw people entranced by what they were hearing, seeing and feeling. For those few minutes time for them had stopped.  The strains and stresses of their day swept away, their minds transported  to all that was good in their lives, their feelings and their hearts .

When an experience touches your heart, everything in your world stands still. Save for the feeling that you are in a state of being rather than doing, enjoying the person you love to be, feeling the way you want to feel, knowing that all you want is for this moment to go on and on.  

Of course it cannot go on.  The experience will end and your life will move on.  But the memory will last, a ripple of peace that will flow on through to everything else in your day and your week. 

These are the moments for which you were born and from which you truly grow, flourish and  blossom into the person of worth you know yourself to be.  

Let time stop for you momentarily right now while you click this link and absorb the experience so beautifully created by this wonderful man.

I love that word empowerment. It gives me goose-bumps every time I feel I have helped a client feel empowered.  I don’t empower them of course…only they can feel empowered, usually by an “aha” moment that I have triggered in their mind.  I would see the word empowerment as really self-empowerment because it is a feeling and feelings are always generated within one’s own self. 

To me empowerment is the positive feeling you get when you are free to fertilize your natural talents with passionate interests - even better with positive like-minded people.  It's what human nature is all about... but life tends to get in the way.

Empowerment is an especially powerful word in the workplace.  Without it, an organisation is held back, the unlimited natural potential of its people being stifled and frustrated. Empowerment energizes everything about a business/team - productivity, commitment, innovation, staff stability and lack of conflict.  Stress is down, mental fitness is up and resilience abounds.  

I was once required to establish an information unit which included taking over the responsibilities of the reception staff. Prior to that they had always transferred most enquiries to a person specializing in the area of enquiry. If that person was out (which was often the case), they would arrange a call back.

I had sensed there was frustrated talent in the reception group. Nonetheless they looked at me aghast when I said from now on they are going to be responsible for providing answers to enquiries. As a team we worked out a process for the change and I encouraged them to use their experience in reception work to come up with ideas.  If I could see that an idea had holes in it, I responded with “what would we do if…?” types of questions and get them to work it through further. 

Within a few months the unit was humming along beautifully, using ideas and systems that the team had largely developed among themselves.  Callers and visitors to the organisation were now enjoying the services of a confident, efficient and incredibly helpful group of people.   They had bonded into a team who felt empowered to not only provide the service expected of them. Of their own volition, they took the meaning of service to a new level, such was their enthusiasm – even passion – to please customers and staff alike.

The power of empowerment is boundless.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.Hit this Re-set Button to arrange a free no-obligation 30-minute consultation glimpse into the future of the real you - we can do it in person, by phone, or on Skype. You will definitely learn something interesting about your true self.

A successful business colleague told me recently how he has now adopted a life work balance approach to life, as distinct from work life balance. Instead of a work first approach he now uses a life first approach with his work being just one - albeit still important - facet of life. He is now enjoying a healthy mix of prioritizing his work energies with opportunities he and his wife set aside to enjoy quality outings together.

This exchange gave me a new perspective on the meaning of the word balance - a word I never liked because we can never really balance our work time and personal time. What's different here is my colleague now has a more balanced perspective on the relative values of his work and his personal life in sustaining his health and wellbeing.

Life today is more about the perspectives we have on it than about the time we spend in it.

Every business is made up of people - managers and staff - who are the real self and the business person. It's tough to be both at once if the business is going to make a profit. But there's no escaping the fact they are always the same person.

TV's Australian Story on the Hawke era touched on the 1990 slump. It triggered widespread business decisions that the cost of staff was too high and should be reduced by sackings or outsourcing. There is plenty of evidence that, 24 years later, business still puts profits ahead of the people on whom the profits depend:

• The Australia Institute promoted 19 November as 'Go Home on Time Day' because 2.8 million Australians are unsure what time they will finish work. That's equivalent to one in four workers juggling home life, child care and other commitments with an unpredictable work schedule
• anything up to 70% of workers would change jobs tomorrow if they could do so
• surveys continue to show a divergence of understanding between managers and staff about the working needs of staff
• stress is now the number one cost in business but workers are still reluctant to talk about mental health issues at work
• leaders still tend to be chosen for their professional skills, with people-skills being an optional extra.

What's the talk that your organisation walks when it comes to people-management?  

I can help. Give me a call on 0417 817 027.

THE QUALITY OF LIFE -   extract from Gough Whitlam’s 1972 Election Policy Speech

“There is no greater social problem facing Australia than the good use of expanding leisure. It is the problem of all modern and wealthy communities. It is, above all, the problem of urban societies and thus, in Australia, the most urbanised nation on earth, a problem more pressing for us than for any other nation on earth. For such a nation as ours, this may very well be the problem of the 1980’s; so we must prepare now; prepare the generation of the ’80s – the children and youth of the ’70s – to be able to enjoy and enrich their growing hours of leisure.”

Thus began the development of Australia’s recreation profession – not the first country in the world to do so, as it was well established in the USA and elsewhere at that time. But Gough Whitlam’s 1972 election statement was a significant watershed for developing the modern leisure, recreation and sporting industry in Australia, not to mention the recreational enjoyment of parks, the arts and cultural services.

Australians of all ages and from all walks of life, from the Olympic sportsperson to the local walking club member are now benefiting from the work of thousands of trained recreation planners and developers. How much their efforts are helping to sustain and improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of millions of Australians is now becoming increasingly accepted and valued.

Yes this is a personal matter to me…I was in the first group to graduate in 1976 from the Graduate Diploma in Recreation Planning established at the then Canberra CAE by the Whitlam Government. It gave me the professional training to structure my life’s passion of promoting the many personal growth and life-expanding benefits of expressing one's natural talents through a passionate leisure interest.

You can get an idea of what I mean by browsing my current business website atwww.australiaspeoplegardener.com.au

Thank you Gough Whitlam. May you rest in peace.

Written on the occasion of the passing of Gough Whitlam Prime Minister of Australia - from1972 to 1975 today at the age of 98.

Recreation planning was my professional work and passion for almost 30 years. I can best describe it as creating places and spaces for a variety of recreational pursuits in which the participants for each of the diverse pursuits go home at the end of the day satisfied that their particular desired experience has been fulfilled.

With the high value/costs of public land set aside for recreational use there is today a growing trend of concern to me. We are now undertaking recreation planning instead of planning for recreation.  

The difference?  My passion to plan for recreation puts the primary emphasis on providing opportunities for the widest possible variety of quality recreational experiences.  What I see happening now however is that such planning is increasingly focusing on getting the  maximum financial return on open space.  In other words, giving priority to recreation and sporting interests that attract funds rather than focusing on satisfying diverse community needs.

This trend also smacks of going back to the bad old days where priority was given to young active predominantly male sporting interests that gain media attention and develop sporting champions. A worthy cause but not at the expense of the majority of an increasingly ageing population who want to enjoy recreational passions for the sheer love of doing so and to keep them healthy in mind, body and spirit.

Balance in all things is vital to personal and community health and wellbeing, including in the provision of opportunities for quality leisure, recreation and sporting experiences.

Mental health, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-belief, commitment, engagement, enthusiasm, motivation, inspiration – all lovely words expressing sentiments that every business wants to see flourishing in every employee.

The common factor is they are all emotional states of mind, realizable only by the individual.  Employers can only cultivate a culture that encourages such emotions to flourish and blossom productively.

Such a culture recognizes and supports respecting the dignity of the individual. It seeks to satisfy individual desires to creatively express personal talents, passions and potential in ways that harmonise (different to duplicate) personal and corporate needs. 

Get it wrong and people will soon be flocking to your door - the exit door.

We're told we are likely to live longer than previous generations, we want to get the most out of life and we would love to slow the ageing process.  The answer is simple - spend more time creating time-stopping experiences.  

They need to be experiences totally suited to you and your unique life.  Which means only you can create them and only you can choose what experiences to create. The answers will be unique to you but they will come from re-visiting your natural-born talents, passions, skills and the potential those resources could realize.  It needs you to create regular experiences in your week that creatively express your talents :

• in your own freely-chosen way,
• for the sheer intrinsic enjoyment you gain from each such experience,
• in your chosen location,
• by yourself or with positive like-minded other people.

These interests/experiences:

• are unrelated to work or other demands on you
• are energizing, mentally stimulating and spiritually refreshing
• you can pursue whenever and wherever you wish
• could be passions that your busy life has forced you to suppress - but don’t limit your potential to try something totally new and challenging  (perhaps be the first to….?)

How are they time-stopping and age-slowing?  These experiences are so enjoyable, stimulating and totally absorbing that you forget the time - you are 'in the zone'  as they say.  They slow the ageing process because these experiences energize you, keep you mentally fit and healthy and keep you feeling young in mind, body and spirit.

Not convinced? Think how long you will live - or how long it will seem like - if you don't have lifelong interests like these built into your lifestyle.

This week I have had the honour of my new article "It's Never Too Late" being featured on Keith Ready's A Gift of Inspiration website and distributed as his first InspirEmail for 2014.

Hopefully "It's Never Too Late" will inspire you to treat the start of this new year as the time for letting nature refresh your life.

I encourage you to:

1. click here to read "It's Never Too Late", and
2. subscribe to future InspirEmails through Keith's A Gift of Inspiration website.

“Loving your teenage son or daughter is not enough. He or she needs to feel that you appreciate them as a blossoming human being, whose talents and uniqueness require constant nurturing, support and encouragement and whose dreams are sufficiently intriguing to be worth exploring.” 

This quotes the 53rd message from my new book "Enjoy Being Proud of Who You Are - 52 Inspirational Life-Skills Messages for Teenagers".  It brings out the fact that no matter how much we might want to influence our teenage children in their life direction, they are going to make their own decisions.

And rightly so!  Whatever our age, we are all unique individuals from birth to death.  No matter how much you try to put yourself in someone else's shoes, you simply cannot do so.  And just like you would with any adult, the way to help people is by focusing on increasing their sense of self-esteem, self-belief, self-confidence and sense of self-worth.

My book brings out many statements that people have learned from their parents and have successfully passed on to their children.  But that is only a start. I want to run workshops and discussion groups with young people and give them the chance to discuss with each other what each statement means in their lives, what has importance to them and - let's be frank - what, to any of them,  is now just so much garbage from us oldies!

 Kids are smart. They want your help but they will make up their own minds. We just need to give them the best possible information on which they can base their own decisions.  

Click on the pic below for information on how you can get a copy of the book to give to your teenager/s as a way of:

• telling them how much you care for and respect them as individual human beings and
• recognizing them as emerging adults who want to blossom in their own way.

Passionate leisure experiences provide a natural, free and unlimited resource to meet perhaps the greatest global energy crisis – the human energy needed to survive, thrive and drive the world’s economy.

Change is affecting everything – including the role and potential of leisure in today's high pressure society. Leisure is back in business, providing solutions to urgent global problems.

Leisure’s had a bad press for too long. It was killed off by the emergence of the 19^th century traditional work ethic which preached that work was ‘the way to heaven and leisure was the work of the devil’.  It wasn’t so much that the work ethic dignified the role of work but that it demeaned the role of leisure. While the religious fervour died out, it has taken until now to reassert its rightful role in the development of personal growth and productivity.   

Stress is killing health by stealth.  There is a global human energy crisis – we are burning human energy faster than we create it, with the inevitable result that burnout symptoms are everywhere – at work and in community life.  The fact that stress has, per se, an important role to play in personal and business development masks the damage that prolonged excessive stress is having on mental health.  The damage caused through workaholism - like alcoholism - doesn’t become apparent until too late.  Depression, stress-related illnesses, broken homes and even suicide are signs of the damage that unrelenting stress is causing in today’s world.

I’ll have what she’s having!!  Don’t you envy those people who not only cope well with stress but positively appear to thrive?  It’s not so much that they have something the rest of us don’t have. Rather they have found a way of generating renewed mental strength, resilience and a sense of being calm in crises. They have a steady resource of natural energy that sustains their resilience, a resource they regularly tap at will.  

 It was someone no less than the Dalai Lhama who said that education today focuses too much on material and economic success and not enough on education of the mind, the emotions and personal growth. 

I was in a gift shop some months ago, looking for gifts for primary school age children. I came across some books with inspirational life messages and thought I would love to give the children something like that when they get a little older.  In fact, I asserted, I could write such a book myself!

From my subsequent investigations I concluded there was indeed a gap in the availability of this sort of book – amazing, given the huge issues of teenage depression and suicide.  Some say there are more suicides than there are road deaths.

So I put my mind to work, culminating in the world-wide release of

“Enjoy Being Proud of Who You Are: 52 Inspirational Life-Skill Messages for Teenagers”.

It is available in print, e-book and e-reader formats through Amazon/Kindle.  

I am not an expert in today’s teenage issues (I vaguely remember being one myself many years ago). It’s simply my attempt to provide a series of thoughts that I have gleaned from my mentor work, my life experiences and from the lives of various other people who gave me some great thoughts they had absorbed sitting at the feet of their own parents and passed down to their children.

Will teenagers read it let alone like it? Who knows? When did you last read a book of inspirational messages from cover to cover? If one teenager who is struggling with adolescence is helped by one message, the task will have been worth the effort.  

If you are a parent, grandparent, guardian, aunt or uncle of a teenager, I urge you to give him/her an opportunity to make their own decisions about reading and, with luck, identifying at least one message in the book that may help them make sense of this mad life.  

I also ask that you heed what is in fact the 53^rd message in the book, directed at you:

“Loving your teenage son or daughter is not enough. He or she needs to feel that you appreciate them as a blossoming human being, whose talents and uniqueness require constant nurturing, support and encouragement and whose dreams are sufficiently intriguing to be worth exploring”.

I would love to hear any anecdotes of outcomes from a reading of my book – by you or by your teenager – or even have you put a review on the sales site from where you purchased your copy.

And I hope His Holiness the Dalai Lhama would approve of my efforts to try bringing some balance into the world of education.