Believe In Yourself

What a Start To The Day

I don’t know why I was so unready for August 1st.

It is an important day for me because it is my daughter Zoe’s birthday and as she got married last year on the first lockdown day in Manchester I will never forget it. Six of us were allowed to attend and so on – and there was an improvised outdoor reception. The thing was that it was special quite unforgettable.

So I sent Birthday and Anniversary greetings to Zoe and Tom all the emojis and jiggly images I could. Time to snuggle up in my bed again for another half hour…

BUT just wait a moment…

Here was an e-mail from Paul Taubman reminding me that I was about to start my challenge. A Thirty-One day Blog Challenge.

Ah Yes but errh – Oh

I had gone through several discussions inside my head about this about 10 days ago when I signed up. The overriding plus point is that I need to work on marketing my products and membership website.

I even thought I would be well prepared with several partially written draft blog posts.

However as usual life just gets in the way – my son Tom got married a week ago – let’s just say this one was bigger than Zoe’s. Now if you are getting lost it may be because my daughter has married a Tom and we already have a Tom. Neither will give up their title so I am you will just have to work out all the time which one I am talking about

So there have been visitors and just thing after thing after thing to do.

So here I am Sunday Morning with a challenge and no plan in place! I had to start somewhere.

Delia Smith – The Canaries – Takes the FLAK

Beside my bed was this weeks magazine from the Times newspaper.

This headline caught my eye. “I’ve Always Had a Lot of Flak. I Was The Boring Cook Doing Boring Stuff”

It was a long article which I thoroughly enjoyed reading because I kept pumping my arms up in the air! She was articulating so well many of my beliefs.

In My Bath – Emotional Olympic Games Interview

So I turned on the radio with the Morning Olympics and off to the bath.

The most amazing thing about following the Olympics is just what you are watching – well away from your normal watching habits. Try the double table tennis, BMX trick riders, canoe slaloms. Incredible entertainment!

Karriss Artingstall is not a name I knew before this morning as I am not into female boxing fan BUT Wow – I was listening to an interview which was a great example of what Delia Smith was talking about. It all fell together to make a blog post.

Delia Smith – The Pop Bits

On the bookshelves of those of us that live in the UK you will probably find a Delia Smith book. She was one of the first TV chefs. Her recipes are still on her website and her Penguin books sales are over 21 million.

She has not published anything since 2009 and her last TV series was 11 years back.

But it is not only professionally that Delia has retired from cookery as the chef at home is her journalist husband Michael Wynne-Jones. He makes it clear that when he is in the kitchen – keep out!

While hubby cooks Delia is working down the bottom of her Suffolk garden on a new book. ‘You Matter’ is to be published next March.

I just think we need to know now to step back a bit from the chaos, and just get to know ourselves inwardly more than we have done. I think everybody’s unique, everybody has a special place. Everyone is a child of the universe if you like. Now I think the answer to the problems we all face is that we underestimate ourselves…

You really now what I’m encouraging people to do is just to step out of the noise for a little while, practice mindfulness or meditation.

I don’t like labels right. Meditation is a word I try to use because it intimidates people I think if people meditate, it’s something esoteric or otherworldly.

Delia Smith – Article in The Times Magazine

How I understand the need to use words carefully. Most of my own products are self-hypnosis related and what a misunderstood field that is. (another day for that rant)

Delia has been writing her book for five years but – in fact, all her life.

During her childhood, Delia was sent to bed early and she could hear kids playing outside. That is when I learned to have a reflective time which is still important to her.

On TV Delia seemed unflappable but she says she was insecure, very, very insecure.

In fact, Paul McCartney of the Beatles once said

I still don’t think I have achieved

Paul McCartney

WHAT!!!

Buncey – Jumping Up And Down About Boxer Karriss Artingstall

My radio interview about female boxer Karriss Artingstall was played after Steve Bunce a boxing pundit

“She lost by one point from one judge the Cuban judge who had not given her the last round which she won, clearly. [more ranting] … he’s haunted me that Cuban and here was one point, that cost her the place, which means that she’s going out … she’s not in the final. She clearly won it.”

Then followed a quite amazing interview given the disappointment.

KARRISS “I can’t sit and dwell on it, kind of, It’s not gonna achieve anything. And the support I’m getting from back at home and the army made me feel like a champion in itself like just making everybody proud my family my mom especially like just receiving messages just telling me how proud she is it made me feel like a winner in itself so I’m happy, obviously I would have preferred to change the colour of a medal but I’ve only been on Team GB for two and a half years so to achieve what I’ve achieved in such a short space of time. I think it’s brilliant to be honest now that I look into it.”

INTERVIEWER: Can you think back at a low moment in your sporting life, when if I said to you, you’re going to win over Olympic bronze you would have thought I was ridiculous

KARRISS:Yeah, a few months ago, at the Olympic qualifiers and a bit of a wobble I just wasn’t in a great mindset. Mentally I wasn’t, I wasn’t the strongest mentally, physically, I was in the best shape of my life but I can’t stress enough how much it means, as an athlete to be mentally prepared when you, when you compete, you know at the pinnacle of the sport.

INTERVIEWER: And what’s the secret of that, what have you learned about that process and maybe how you can do it even better next time.

KARRISS:If you’ve got to believe in yourself, I think like you’re not here for no reason, the coaches have put the time and effort into you because they obviously see something as well so I think you’ve just got to believe in others, that believe in you and you’ve got to believe in yourself. As I said, I didn’t get to the qualifiers to look I was there for a reason I was there because I’m obviously good at what I do so, I think self-beliefs are a massive, massive thing, and I’m just listening to the coaches and your team around you’re there to help you so you just got to take it on board…

You just got to sit down, have a talk with yourself and just drill it into your head that you are good enough to go on and achieve anything that you want to achieve sort of in and out of being in the Army, help you with that. You know what I got asked this question the other day and I believe that being in the Army, you need to be disciplined, you need to be focused determined strong fit, mobile, and I think you need to carry all the attributes into the ring with you as well. So I think what I learned, going through the army so all the attributes I’ve just said, Being confident, being robust being disciplined determined. I’ve managed to build all them, like, build a character around all that and bring it all into the ring with me as well and I think it’s paid off massively because it goes to show when I’m in the ring, I’ve got a massive heart when it comes to this sport, like some of my fights have been closed, but I believe the way I’ve performed in similar rounds I just get down on my gum shield and I’ve just dug in and like it just goes to show that I’ve got a massive heart and the attributes I’ve built up in the army have definitely carried over with me into boxing.

It was that really important message we all need – Believe In Yourself that moved me