I had a nice day on Wednesday. My manager booked me in for some training near Heathrow, and rather than travel up there in morning traffic, I went up the night before and stayed in a hotel. I asked Phillip if he’d like to come with me, and he said he would, so I had company.
I was at training from 10am – 1pm, and he got more work done in those three hours than he has in the last two weeks, which I knew he would. He never does any work nowadays, because his television, the gym, or other people, are too much of a distraction. It gets on my nerves intensely, but it’s not my business, so I try to hold it inside as best I can (which isn’t very well).
My training made me feel good – it’s nice when a company invests in you – and when I got near home, I called my manager and asked if I could stop for lunch, and she said yes. So Phillip and I then had lunch together, before I dropped him home and whizzed back to work.
It just all felt so good!
The other day I put a pre-Patrick’s Day spreadbet on the S&P500. The market rose as I thought it would, yet I lost over £40, because I simply didn’t risk enough. My stop-loss was too tight.
Phillip constantly complains about money nowadays. Because he doesn’t risk enough. He sits there and timidly writes a few emails and makes a couple of phonecalls each day, then spends the rest of the day procrastinating and hanging out in the gym, depressed that he’s not the next Donald Trump.
And I’m the same. I work long, hard hours, but I could make double what I make in half the hours if I worked for myself. But I can’t work for myself, because I’m not yet able to risk it all. To throw everything into it, to know that if it fails, it’s all because of me. I failed. And use that aversion of failure to drive me forward, and give me nothing but 100% confidence in myself.
It’s all “all or nothing” kind of world.
I’m quite proud of myself so far. I went a whole week without chocolate! Sunday was my ‘cheat day,’ as Trevor at work calls it; something he says is essential to any fitness plan. I had a chocolate brownie with hot chocolate sauce (following a delicious meal in a scenic park, nearby to the gym Phillip and I drove to earlier in the day), followed by a Cadbury’s Caramel and Twirl later on when I was in my bedroom by myself. It may sound like a lot of chocolate, but for me, that’s an average day’s chocolate consumption (if not a little under-average for a weekend), so I hope you can see just how much I am giving up here!
So, onto week 2. I’m kicking off the week with a sore throat and mild exhaustion, which makes me only want chocolate even more. This evening I had to go to the gym – even though it’s probably not a wise idea when one is sick – just to stop myself from eating chocolate.
It worked, and now I’m off to bed.