Andy's Blog

 

I’ve just finished writing ‘The Art of Being a Brilliant Teacher’ with Chris Henley and Gary Toward (if you attended the last 2%ers you will know them and their fab school). Fingers crossed that it’s a half decent book that connects with its intended audience. But one thing it has forced me to do is think about the issues faced by educators.

As always, I ask for your patience while I make my point. Please hang in there. This could be the most awesome 5 minutes of your day!

If you’ve seen ‘Monsters Inc.’ you’ll know it’s a cool movie. If you haven’t seen it...what are you waiting for? Sully is a blue, hairy, hulk of a monster. His buddy, Mike, is well...an eye. On legs. And they are a team. They work for ‘Monsters Incorporated’, a huge organisation that employs monsters to scare children into screaming...

A few words of intro from Andy... Ok folks, here’s your moment. Your chance to contribute to a magnificent project that will touch the lives of young people across the world. Have you ever wondered what would happen if we mobilised thousands of positive people into action? Appetite wetted? Of course it is, you’re a 2%er! We need you on board, to get involved in creating the most inspirational book for teenagers...in the world! Ever! This is my most important blog to date. And I’m handing it over to Richie. Read. Absorb. Do... Hi folks! I’m Richie...

 

The natives are restless. We are gripped with discontented craziness. We strive to better ourselves by buying. We call it ‘retail therapy’ (dic. definition, ‘feeling good by purchasing’). Nowadays advertising is viral. Like a disease! Its aim is to create dis-satisfaction with your current lifestyle so you feel the urge to upgrade to a better sofa, newer car, Sony laptop or a better pair of breasts. Life is a progression, not from young to old but from desire to desire...

Having spent many years working with people trying to find happiness (and achieve various forms of success) I’ve discovered that one of the main obstacles to happiness is what I’ve come to call “the tyranny of when”. To what am I referring, you may well ask? Well, “the tyranny of when” is the phenomenon we’ve all experienced at some time or other when we say to ourselves (or to others) that “I’ll be happy when...

Let’s start with a stat. The average life span in the UK is currently 82. That’s approximately 29,000 days, or, in old money, 4,000 weeks

Some people are lucky and get a few more weeks. Some are unlucky and get less. But we average 4,000 weeks before we croak. I’ll leave you to consider whether 4,000 is a big number or not!

One of my goals is to take ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ into schools. Which got me thinking, how can I make the point about life being so short to an audience so young? I remember being a teenager. Life stretched out lazily so far into the future that I could afford to waste the present (those days are long gone!). So, I had an idea...

It was happening on a regular basis. Sometimes two or three times a day. And it was doing his head in. At first he’d been scared. I mean, the earth shaking and the heavens opening could hardly be described as pleasant. The tremors were off the Richter scale and some of the snow storms had been positively Antarctic...

Recently, I came across an interesting concept. The Matthew Effect is when an initial success in something leads to even greater success. And, conversely, if we are unsuccessful, we’re likely to become even more unsuccessful. In short, it seems that success and failure will grow like Topsy, whichever gets the upper hand. The effect derives its name from a passage in the Gospel of St Matthew, 25:29. ‘To everyone who has, will more be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’

Heavy stuff. But most probably true. Let me give you just one example...

My aim, along with most other people, is to live a long and happy life. And, I’m pleased to report, so far so good. My children are aged 15 and 11 so, while the innocence of Santa is gone, the magic of Christmas is still pretty much alive and well. I absolutely love Christmas. Sure, I follow the kids around turning off lights and inching the thermostat down a notch or two...

Sometimes opportunities arise that are just too fab to miss. For me, a trip to India is exactly that. I’ve been so excited about taking ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ to the subcontinent. But my excitement was tinged with apprehension. The workshop contains some humour. My humour! Which sometimes doesn’t even translate to British audiences! And some of the phraseology about ‘mood hoovers’ and ‘2%ers’ and especially ‘limbic locking’. And what if the cultural differences mean that audiences just sit there passively? Yikes! My workshops rely on interaction and banter and off-the-cuffness. You see, some of my language doesn’t even makes sense in English!

Now I’m here, ensconced in the middle of Delhi. I’ve delivered 3 days of ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ to various audiences from teens upwards. Sweltering temperatures and huge crowds. Lessons learned...

If you’ve ever come on an ‘Art of Being Brilliant’ workshop (or read our fantastic book of the same name) you’ll be familiar with the term ‘mood hoovers’. A mood hoover is someone who’s stuck in a typically British doom and gloom mentality. The news is always bad, the weather’s always grim, all teenagers are hoodies, work’s rubbish...you get my drift!  They’re stuck in moan mode. And we call them mood hoovers because they’re expert at sucking all the positivity and joy out of the people around them. It only takes 30 seconds...and they’ve made us feel as depressed as they are!

Let me introduce you to a guy who’s the opposite of a mood hoover. We call them, 2%ers...

Remember the olden days?

When cameras had films in. And you took 24 snaps, popped the film into an envelope and sent it off to be developed. 10 days later, Mr Postie delivered a fat envelope and you’d get excited...

I run a course called 'The Art of Being Brilliant'. Quite honestly, I have the best job in the world, travelling to meet people from various businesses and schools to deliver something that really works. The results over the years have been magnificent. OK, so there have been a few failures...