weekend myth

When you are running your own small business, the concept of a weekend becomes a foreign idea. The concept of a working day being 9 - 5 is even stranger. When committed to succeed in you business, even in the down time you are thinking about what else you can do to grow the business, to make your work more efficient, or what you can do to promote the business.

A Gallop Poll found that small business owners work long hours with 62% saying they worked 50 or more hours a week. Fifty-seven percent of small-business owners say they work six or more days each week. However, small business owners are prepared to work these hours without complaint. In 2013, The Bank of Montreal published a report on the psychology of small business owners and revealed that more than 80% those polled were motivated by passion, and therefore did not see the hours of work as a barrier to enjoying a work life balance.

I do think that the small business owner thinks differently from someone with a job mentality. For the very successful business owners their motivation is usually something that is emotional to them. They work hard so they can better serve other people and that is probably why they end up being successful. When you decide to set up your own business or to freelance, you are there for the long haul. There is no instant gratification as it takes time to build customer loyalty, to design and finesse your product and to maintain and continuously grow and develop your skills. Your work ethic has to be one in which you are prepared to go for it regardless of the risk of failure, and consistently keep working at it without giving up. Many business owners go without getting paid a check for years just to get their business off the ground so the idea of being paid for time and effort become null and void when setting up your own business - at least in the short to medium term.

Although I cannot remember the last time I officially had a weekend, I don't spend my time at working thinking about a weekend either. I enjoy my work and going on an assignment or doing a shoot in the studio for the most part does not actually feel like work. Today though I did have one of those rare days that seemed to be a wonderful balance between work, rest and play.

The day started out covering a 4 year old's "unicorn-themed" party. Just watching the kids bouncing around was enough to get a sugar rush. I was tempted to get into some more editing this afternoon, but the day was a glorious blue, so I took some time out to visit one of my favourite rocks to do a meditation. On the walk down to the rock, there was a jogger coming towards me. The slogan on his singlet made me smile. In big bold letters it said "BE A WELL BEING", inside my mind a little voice loudly said said "Don't worry, I plan on it".

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Flying Solo Tip 052365 : When you are passionate about the work you do, it never feels like work or a job, it feels like living a fully and rewarding life.

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excuse me

... there's a dragon in my dinner bowl.

Tonight's dinner is a simple bowl of split peas, lentils, sweet potato, spinach and barberries, with some wholemeal chapatti on the side.

With the last week being plagued by a flare of of my MS and a suppressed immune system, I have become more conscious about the fact that I do need to be more consistent in choosing the foods that will keep in better health for the duration. My focus at the moment is to boost my immune system.

Here are some of the health benefits of this bowl of deliciousness.

One of the many health benefits of lentils are that they increase steady, slow-burning energy due their fibre and complex carbohydrates. Lentils are also a good source of iron, which transports oxygen throughout your body and is key to energy production and metabolism. I certainly need to improve my energy levels. Being a naturally high energy person with a lot of stamina, probably the thing that I find most frustrating when I am having a MS flare up is the fatigue.

Sweet potato is one of my favourite vegetables. They are a good source of iron and magnesium, a combination which helps to build our resistance to stress while supporting our immune system.

Spinach has loads of antioxidants. Antioxidants are a range of substances that fight the free radicals in our bodies that cause illness and disease. Our immune system is constantly being bombarded and although the body does naturally produce antioxidants we do need to supplement that through the fruits and vegetables that we eat.

Barberries with their distinctive sour taste are often found in Iranian foods. The medicinal and therapeutic value of barberry comes from the chemical berberine. Again a food rich with immune boosting properties and detoxifying agents.

There is so much a need to learn about food, and a conscious effort to recognise the benefits sitting on my plate is a growing interest as I take this journey of now being well.

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Flying Solo Tip 051365 : Learn to identify the benefits of what is currently sitting on your plate. How well does it serve you to fly solo with strength and ease?

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even keel

It was an "even keel" kinda day. Another day devoted to editing and delivery of final images to customers.

In the past I used to think that one had to be in a state of mania, or state of despair to be creative - that creativity was somehow associated with heightened levels of emotion or energy. I often felt that I did my best creative work at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning after working all day. However, the expression of creativity is far more complex than that.

In 2014, a study published by the Mindfulness journal found that meditation can promote creative thinking. In particular the practice of mindfulness meditation - which involves acknowledging thoughts and emotions that arise; being receptive to them without “following them" enhanced creative thinking, allowing for the creation of new, imaginative ideas. This suggests that being in a state when we are not charged by our emotions is actually good for enhancing our creative thinking.

Another study in 2015 which used MRI scans to map the creative thinking process showed that the entire creative process involves states of euphoria and inspiration as well as states of calm and rational focus. This study suggested that creative people are characterised not by these states alone but by their adaptability and ability to mix seemingly incompatible states of being depending on the task, whether it’s open attention with a focused drive, mindfulness with daydreaming, intuition with rationality, intense rebelliousness with respect for tradition. In other words, creative people have messy minds, and some of us have messy desks to.

When we are tired, our brain becomes less effective in paying attention and filtering our distractions, which are criteria essential for focussed tasks but detrimental to the the creative process. When we are tired, our brain is less efficient at remembering connections and therefore gives us the opportunity to create new ways of thinking and to be open to new ideas. There is some value then in doing creative work at night, and our analytical focus work in the mornings as these different tasks require our brains to processing information differently.

Creativity is not inherited. However, one of the more interesting articles I stumbled across today, was research undertaken in the early 1990's which suggested that the development of our creative thinking is closely associated with the relationship we had with our mothers as children.

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Flying Solo Tip 050365 : When you keep an open mind to different experiences, you are building a reference library for your future creative self.

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