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15 (more) Seconds of Fame

I was unexpectedly on radio this week.

My lovely friends Mel Kettle and Annette Jones were on ABC Brisbane 612 as part of the festival of Brisbane Podcasts. As part of their segment, they played some excepts from recent guests including when I was a guest.

You can see them in action here courtesy of the host Spencer Howson:

To check out the whole audio, including my fabulous 15 seconds of glory, head on over to the ABC site here.

Darren Rowse and Jo Whitton were also excerpted (is that a word?) but if click on their names you can hear their whole podcast. You can hear Spencer’s podcast here (yes, he was a guest as well) and my edition here (they call me a Poodle Daddy!) but you really want to check out The Activity Pod at their website.

DIY or DIFM?

(Do It Yourself or Do It For Me)

This was our weekend. We spent most of Friday and all of the weekend moving a very large, very heavy and very noisy bit of equipment around on our concrete floor.

We were trying to make it into a fantastic, shiny and glamorous bit of flooring goodness but it never go there!

The equipment was great and a big thanks to Kennard’s Concrete Care for helping us out. The first grinder died 90 mins into grinding and they went out of their way and swapped another one in 8pm on a Friday night!!

But here’s the thing with DIY – if everything goes well, it’s fabulous and you can save yourself a lot of money. But if you get that one job that has “special” requirements it is a nightmare as a DIY person. A DIFM expert would be able to read the situation, use their many years of skills and know the short cut to success.

This is where the DIFM expert earns their money.

Our concrete wouldn’t grind. We changed to the medium bonding, harder diamonds as directed but still it didn’t grind. We Googled, YouTubed, and even read the instruction manual. It made no difference. We talked to others who had had some grinding done recently and something didn’t seem right.

So we kept on doing what we knew to be right (because we had hired the equipment for the weekend). What we were missing was the 20 years of experience to be able to “read” the concrete and know how best to attack it. The DIFM expert would have known.

I won’t say it was a wasted weekend (because then I would have no reason to feel this exhausted) and the finish we have is better than the raw concrete, but it is not even close to the vision.

What we do have is a unique concrete floor, loaded with character than in two or three years (when we have prioritised the money for it) will have a professional come and grind and seal it.

While DIY is good and can save you some money the DIFM professional undoubtedly gives a better experience, particulalry if an issue arises. It’s one of the main reasons I get booked as a corporate MC.

So what do you need to DIY and what do you need to get a DIFM professional in for?

Bowie is Dead. What about You?

You have probably read by now that David Bowie died of cancer a couple of days ago. He was a titan of the artistic community. His body of work (musical, artistic and theatrical) is significant and ever changing. One of my favourite songs of his was Heroes.

Let me be incredibly blunt.

SO WHAT?

The price of admittance to life is an ultimate death. As someone born in 1968, my musical, artistic and business heroes will continue to die off. There will be calls of “way before there time”, “so unfair” and “they had a great innings” no matter what. The thing is, you rarely get to choose when it is your time.

SO LIVE!

One of the things I love about Bowie is that he lived. He did not conform to what other thought he should do but travelled his own path. He tried different things, created a multitude of characters and alter egos and made his impact on the world as he saw fit. He failed as often as he succeeded and his only competition appeared to be himself.

What about you? Do you live or do you merely exist?

Too often I have met people who have died and just plod along like zombies. Or maybe they have retired on the inside but still turn up to work and life without “getting into it”.

Often our driving influence is from others telling us to follow the path of go to school, study hard, get a job, get a partner, get married, have kids, buy a house and live happily ever after. This is the perceived “safe” thing to do.

Now more than ever, the safety of this path looks flimsy! In the civilised world where people like me can pontificate and try and tell others what to do with their life, sometimes we are distanced from what truly counts.

What truly counts is this:

It’s your choice. If you are happy on the normal path, fantastic – enjoy it. If not, try something different. Make a big change. Take a chance. Maybe you could combine the normal path with a bit of edge too.

Whatever makes YOU feel happy and complete. Not what I tell you to do, or your parents, your partner, your friends, your work colleagues or anyone else.

This doesn’t mean you abandon your responsibilities. Every choice you make has a cost. For example, you want to have a relationship then you need to commit to that person, spend time with them, consider their needs and contribute to them as well as to yourself. If you choose to ignore them and do your own thing, the cost of that may well be them leaving.

Within your responsibilities and choices are a plethora of opportunities to contribute to yourself, those around you and the community at large. You may end up being a celebrity the like of David Bowie (you may already be), you may be a celebrity in the eyes of those you love.

At the very least, you will truly be alive. Enjoy all that life has to offer and getting everything you can out of it.

“If you’re alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.”

Mel Brooks

So it is sad that Bowie has died. But what about you? Are you alive?

Mindful, Confident and Successful

This afternoon, Zerafina Zara, Therese Sheedy and I had a Blab chat about our upcoming 2016 Kick Start.

We talked about colouring books, mindfulness, communication, listening, success, deep conversations and more.

The conversation goes for about 30 minutes and you can check out the replay here.

There is also a special offer that almost doubles your value – details at the end of the video (of course!)

Special Offer

After watching the recording you will see that if you book your spot on the 2016 Kick Off by midnight Melbourne time Monday 14th December, you will get the Get More Business Success 12 CD pack worth $597 for NO EXTRA CHARGE! That’s right, it is your bonus for being a take action kind of person. Simply visit the 2016 Kick Off page and book your spot and we will get the CD pack to you.

See you at the Kick Off!

Be a Jedi

Let me introduce you to my new Jedi buddy, Charli.

Now you may not understand what I am talking about so let me explain.

In his training of Luke, the Jedi master, Yoda stated, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering.”

With all of the fear, anger, hatred and suffering in the world right now, we need someone strong in the Force to keep us on the right path. So let me introduce Jedi Charli.

As you can see Charli has some amazing hair. Not bad for a six year old. Out of the blue last week, she said to her parents that she wanted shorter hair so what should she do with her long hair. After a big discussion, she decided to donate 30cm of her hair to kids with cancer. Charli thought that her hair could make some great wigs. She recently reconsidered and decided 45 cms would be better!

With the help of her dad, she also set up an Every Day Hero page to raise some money for the Cancer Council of Victoria. Charli came up with the target of $2,000. She is so close! At the time of writing she is sitting on about $1,700. Click here for the latest figures.

A quick reminder, Charli is SIX! Such fantastic, positive, loving Jedi thinking from one so young. We old people could learn a thing or two.

In a time of fear, anger and hatred I choose to focus on the positive and the good in the world and Charli represents this in spades!

So what can you do? Can I encourage you to blow Charli’s target out of the water by making a significant donation? Help show this young girl that she is doing an AWESOME thing and we can help her. Cast your mind back to when you were six and think how attached you were to YOUR hair!

The next thing you can do is be pleasant to people you meet and to open your arms and your hearts to others. Personally, I am skipping the news and not focussing on the drama of all the attacks. Maybe I am naive, but it helps me defeat the intent of these attacks. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear, anger and hate can only lead to suffering.

So be a Jedi and focus on the good.
PS Don’t forget to click here to donate to Charli’s appeal, Thank you so much for your donation.

Priorities Count

My gorgeous wife and I have just returned from the delightful Dominican Republic.

Our flight home had a 24 hour stop over in Los Angeles so we chose to rent a hotel room and then hire a car for a day to do some roaming around and shopping at some outlet malls.

This is where it became a matter of priorities.

We could have spent a fortune on a hotel with all the modern conveniences, fluffy towels and 24 hour concierge. But that wasn’t our priority.

You may recall that my wife is a petrol head. So we went for the very simple, bed, bathroom and free wifi hotel for under $100. We spent twice as much on our car for the day and neither of us regret that decision at all! Here’s why.

That’s right, it was a muscle car – a Camaro SS just like Bumble Bee in Transformers.

After hitting the Walmart (you can see it in the background) we did a little more shopping and then headed back to the airport driving a couple of hours down the coast road. It was the quintessential Fast and the Furious kind of experience and it was impossible to get the smile of our faces (zoom in and check out my lovely wife’s).

Who remembers their hotel room? I can’t, I just slept through it!

So what are your priorities? What are you doing because you “should” not because you want to? What will bring you the most joy? What represents SUCCESS to you?

Choose wisely because priorities count!

Eyes of Wonder

Sydney is an amazing city. It has significant history, fantastic architecture and of course, a stunning harbour.

While hosting a conference this weekend, I was fortunate to participate in the social outing of a harbour cruise. Two hours motoring around the harbour with 200 of my newest friends!

I got talking to a Sydney-sider who told me how they forgot how beautiful Sydney was and that this twilight cruise really opened their eyes again.

We get so used to our own situation that sometimes the amazing things we have or have achieved become “normalised”. That is, they lose their wonder or more accurately, WE lose our “eyes of wonder”. Sydney’s harbour, Melbourne’s botanical garden, Brisbane’s river front, Adelaide’s churches, Perth’s beaches, Hobart’s Mount Wellington and Darwin’s night market can all become ordinary things.

What about you? What is amazing in your life? What do you no longer see?

How can you open your eyes of wonder?

Alleged Associates

Every now and again on a Friday night at 7pm I will make my way over to Smokehouse 101.
It is a funky little cafe on the West side of Melbourne and serves some yummy food but that is not what I am there for.

Every Friday the Alleged Associates perform. They are a very loose arrangement pulled together by their lead singer Zerafina Zara. Now Zerafina is a friend of mine so she is not happy for me to remain in the audience. She let’s me perform. So a few random words of delight, dodgy jokes, radio voice overs and even a song or two with backing vocals usually happens.

It is a fun night of creativity and music. Terry the guitar player used to play for John Farnham when he was Johny Farnham and the bass player has played all over the world. Their willingness to try anything and have a bit of fun creates a magic evening that couldn’t be repeated, even if they wanted too!

Last Friday Sandra (their number one fan and groupie) and I were able to record a bit of video. Through the magic of editing, you can check it out here.

Don’t forget to come and see us live at the Smokehouse101!

What’s Your Success?

Here are a couple of thoughts on success and what you can do to build your own.

The video is only 2 minutes but the lessons lasts a lifetime, so click play and enjoy.

Wisdom from Winston

This is Winston, our Toy Poodle. Yes, you are right – he IS a very manly dog.

He turned two last month and I wanted to share with you some of the lessons he has taught us in that small time. They are valuable lessons that my help you in life.

Constantly show your love for others. Bark at them, lick them, sniff them, jump up and down – do whatever it takes.

Share your stuff. If someone comes to visit, be sure to share your toys with them. They may have fun with it too!

If it feels good, do it. It may be weird to sit on the heater vent with your ears blowing in the warm air, but it feels good.

Snuggling is good. Even sitting on the couch watching TV, it is good to snuggle in and be loved.

Say hello to strangers. Just because you haven’t met them before, doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.

Welcome home your loved ones. Whether they have been gone 3 seconds, 3 hours or 3 days, show them how excited you are to see them.

Tell others what you want. Whether by scratching at the door, dropping your toy at their feet or sitting on their head to get attention.

Do everything with enthusiasm. It is not just a walk, it’s A WALK! It’s not playing, it’s PLAYING! Let your enthusiasm be contagious.

Who would have thought such wisdom would come from such a delicate being?

It’s Good for You

I have just spent the weekend with 20 of my closest friends in an eight bedroom house. They are the choir that I belong to, Mood Swing. It was our band camp where we did some drumming workshops, body movements and, of course, some singing.

It is amazing the bond we have created, the fabulous music we create and and the fun we have.

It’s …. GOOD. Good for the mind, the body and the spirit.

There is so much research on how singing together is good for you and your community. Even corporate choirs are becoming more popular and provided as part of “stress management” in the work place.

What about you? Would you Sing For Good?

As I have mentioned previously, I am honoured to be one of this years ambassadors for Sing For Good. I can highly recommend that you have a sing with some friends, video it and submit it to the site. There are some great prizes on offer and also money raised goes to support the great work that Creativity Australia does with their “With One Voice” program.

If you are not the kind of person to sing, no dramas. Head on over to the Sing For Good website and support your favourite entry with a donation. (I recommend you consider Mood Swing’s entry, but I am biased!)

Even if you don’t do that, at the very least when your favourite song comes on the radio, sing a long to it. It’s even better if you are with someone else and you both sing a long. It does great things for your health, physically and spiritually – basically, it’s GOOD!

Soothe The Beast

Music soothes the savage beast.

You know it’s true. Think of the times you have been “beast like” (angry, grumpy, sad… you know the feeling) and then a fabulous song comes on and you get a better perspective on the world.

Not only does music soothe YOUR savage beast, it can also soothe the beast of others.

It can soothe the beast of unemployment, poor health, loneliness and a sense of “not belonging”.

“But How”, I hear you ask.

Well Sing for Good is the answer. Sing for Good is a project run by the charitable organisation Creativity Australia. Creativity Australis supports people in need via their With One Voice program. For the last couple of years they encourage people to grab a friend (or three or 20) and record a video of themselves singing. This then gets loaded to their website and the world votes.

It is a fantastic initiative and I am an Ambassador for this year’s event. (So all correspondence should be to Ambassador Warwick!)

As an Ambassador, I wanted to be sure that I entered as well. You can see my entry here.

Can I encourage you to visit their website and find out all about what they do?
Then keep revisiting as more and more acts add their videos.

Don’t forget, you too can grab a few friends, sing a song you love and enter yourself. It is so much fun.

Thanks for helping soothe the beast!

Where’s Your Head At?

Greetings from Washington DC! I am over here speaking at a conference with only about 2,000 people!

While here I received an email from one of our tribe asking:

“I wonder your thoughts. A person I know said that he thinks it’s wrong to tell people/youth they can do what they want to do, be whatever they want to be.

He thinks it gives them a goal they can never reach, or a dream they can never fulfil, if they dream too big, or hope too high, they’ll never achieve it and be full of grief and hopelessness.

I say, dream as big as the stars and then have as much fun as you can getting there. Who’s right?”

You know the good thing? You are both right!

Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t you are right”

So by this person telling anyone, “Don’t think too big, play a smaller game, you will never make it” they will make it true. AND they will be surrounded by people who think smaller, are self limited and typically unsatisfied and grumpy.

But amazingly awesome people like YOU who say “Anything is possible, dream big and strive towards it” create fabulously positive people! Let’s be honest, they may not make it, but they chance that they will make it is far higher. Maybe they won’t make their goal but they will make it far closer that the person who listened to the person saying “don’t try” and they will have one hell of a ride along the way.

I like to think that we are building a better world by talking about what’s possible not what’s impossible.

In Washington President Kennedy said, “We will go to the moon.” He didn’t say, “We’d like to but it’s too hard, too expensive and we may not make it.” Just recently, a satellite flew past the furtherest “almost” planet Pluto.

“We will go to the moon” has taken us much father than “that’s really hard and it may not happen.”

So what about you? Where is your head at?

Give ‘Til it Helps

Often people say, “Give ’til it Hurts”, but I am more of a fan of “Give ’til it Helps.” It doesn’t just have to help them, it can also help you!

Recently I saw on Facebook (so you know it’s true) that volunteerism had declined. So I thought I would check it the research.

The Volunteering Australia website informs me that while more people are volunteering, they are doing it for a smaller amount of time. Young adults in particular have reduced the amount of hours they spend volunteering.

The great thing the research said is how good it is. Not just for the recipient, but for yourself as the volunteer.

Volunteering gives a measurable increase in:

Happiness
State of well-being
Overall state of mental health
Level of sleep
Self-Worth

Unfortunately, the volunteer rates a far lower in the city when compared to rural volunteering (34% vs 41%). Volunteering has also decreased for community services and emergency management.

From personal experience, professional associations are also declining in numbers of members and numbers of people willing to do things or give their time.

What about you? Do you volunteer? While we seem to get busier and busier, the health benefits for volunteering are outstanding and the costs are minor – it’s cheaper than therapy and almost as good for you.

Why don’t you look at how you can volunteer? It could be as simple as helping paint a friend’s room or patting dogs at the local dog shelter. It is amazing the benefits you will get.

Quite simply, Give ‘Til It Helps!

I Need Help

Hey All – I need a favour.

I am creating a new website all about success and I need some photos to put on that website. Now I was going to get some stock photos and then I thought – hey I know loads of successful people.

So what I need are photos that you own and are willing to give me permission to use on the front page of my new website. For the top 10 photos (as voted by me) I will give you an amazing super duper prize as well as feature you in my upcoming podcast.

Your picture has to represent “SUCCESS” and while you and I know your family are successful, I don’t need any family portraits. I am thinking achievements, awards, holidays, goals, etc etc. But please feel free to use your own definition of success.

The ultimate resolution will be 1600×700 so think long and skinny (like me lying down!!)

Feel free to spread the word.

Simply email the image(s) to me warwick [at] warwickmerry dot com with a bit of an explanation to submit your entry.

This is a competition of skill and not luck (so I avoid any gaming laws). Judges decision is final. Fun level is high. Entries to be in by end of June 2015.

The Super Duper Prize for Top 10

Profiling on the upcoming Success podcast
A recording of the Get More Fun CD
Copy of the One Page Marketing Plan and One Page Business Plan templates
Link to your website in Credits Area
Link to your website when they click on the image
My eternal gratitude

Doesn’t that sound great?

I will also put all entries on a gallery page with a link to your website.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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