Road Rage the Inner Chimp

This week has been busy but great. I was in Bristol Monday and Tuesday to train a really good group from the South Gloucestershire Council on Time Management and Conflict Management. The day flew by with great interaction.

On Wednesday I was in Doncaster training a group of 17 staff from the Salvation Army Housing Association on Mental Resilience. This was a great session which was full of fun and good learning.

Thursday saw me on BBC Radio Nottingham doing the newspaper reviews on the breakfast show at 8.25am. I picked 3 stories to go through and the presenter asked me about my business so I was able to share some of what I do. I have been booked again for the 15^th December and I am bringing my basketball in with me to spin it live on air!

How surreal is that as they can’t see anything on radio- or can they? I will introduce the concept with the technique of visualisation and ask them to imagine a big baldy man standing up and spinning a ball in his finger. This will introduce the technique of visualisation with a live demonstration. It just goes to show that with a bit of creativity most things are possible.

Thursday evening Julie and I attended the Nottingham Post Sports Awards Gala evening as guests of Serena Humphry of Fword Trainng and it was fantastic! Hundreds of guests eating, drinking and clapping the winners – what a night!

On Friday I had a lovely trip to London to coach my client and I was back by 5pm to finish the paperwork for the week. I so enjoy this trip as I leave on the 9.32am train which is lovely and quiet and I catch the 3.15pm train back which is again lovely and quiet so I can work away happily. I spend much of my time working in coffee shops and this feels the same except we are moving at 100mph.

My Chimp was challenged on Tuesday evening at 4.30pm. I had set off from Bristol back to Nottingham for the 3 hour journey back and within 10 minutes of hitting the M5 I heard on the radio that there had been 2 road accidents and they were directly ahead of me. My initial thought would have been “What are the odds of that” and I would have been ranting about the injustices of bad luck etc. The new me however reacted differently and on this occasion, as is normal now, I just thought how can I make the best of this as these things will happen. The calm human in me made a considered choice to leave the motorway because there was no stress or anger.

I was right next to a motorway services as I hit standing traffic so I just managed to pull off and I drove in parked up, got a cup of tea and a snack and started working. I managed to catch up on all my e-mails, typed up the feedback sheets from the training which were good and sent out some invoices. I finishes at 6.45pm and set off home. The road was now completely clear and I had a lovely drive home listening to the radio happy and relaxed – arriving home at 8.45pm.

If I had stayed on the motorway I would have had a couple of hours of frustrating driving in heavy traffic then a further 2 hours to get home and then would still have had all the paperwork to sort out. Keeping my Chimp calm at all times is one of my goals and so far it is working very well.

Let me know if you have any stories like this or similar where you have either lost it or kept your cool and the results of this. It would be good to hear these.

Have a great week

John