Category: Personal

This is a question I have been asking my self all week;

Who are you?

What makes you …you?

What could make a better you?

How are you going to be a better you?

I am a father, a husband, a son, an entrepreneur/ business owner, a friend, a dreamer.

I still can’t put my finger on what makes me  . . . me, although I keep coming back to ‘your experiences make you ,you’, what I can say is that my wife, my kids and my friends and family make me who I am.

In the last week, since the ‘man in the mirror’ post, I’ve felt the need for a mental change, personally I’m trying to get up early and get a workout in, if the kids get up at that time, they come through and sit on the couch watching the effort I’m putting in, in order to get in better shape to be able to run around with them on holidays and up the park in the better weather.

From a Business stand point, over christmas there was a lot we did to go and give people prices for work, and I realised, some people want something for nothing, but to get quality you need to pay a little extra, I refuse to put my name to a half assed piece of work, I was lazy and unmotivated through out university, but that is changing, No longer am I gonna waste energy on negative people and negative emotions/thoughts, I wanna grow my business as this will help my family out in the long run, so we have meetings, one to ones, and partnerships that will help everyone out, aswell as diversification plans afoot.

Negativity can only drag you down, only dictators prosper from negativity. a positive outlook and few new plans to research and see if they are workable for myself.

learn to say yes a little more.

As JAY-Z said ‘ ALLOW ME TO REINTRODUCE MYSELF’  I am a loving Father a devoted husband, and Keen Businessman  who is trying to make his and his family’s dreams come true, and this will allow me to spend more time with my friends.

Michael Jackson said it best, ‘IM STARTING WITH THE MAN IN THE MIRROR, IM ASKING HIM TO CHANGE HIS WAYS’. ‘ IF YOU WANNA MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE YOU GOTTA CHANGE YOUR WAYS.

So as the new year rolled in, like everyone, the big thing to do is go on some diet or hit the gym hard then give up after 5 or 6 weeks and head right back to somewhere further away from square one than when you started. This has happened to me a few times, joined a gym 6 years ago have been 9 times since joining, cancelled that, tried Herbalife … got hungry, weight watchers . . . wanted to food, joined slimming world . . . lost 2.5 stone in 3 month, then left after a change in the person that led the session.

What I’m getting at is, we all need that thing, that goal, that motivation, that desire and drive to make a change, but what we don’t realise we need is the support, regardless who you are, we all need support, pro athletes have the support of physios, nutritionists, trainers, coaches, etc, but for those of us mere mortals there is little or no support or we feel we can go it alone, never go it alone (it’s easier to give up) be accountable to some one/ group, you deserve it to yourself.

My moment came when down at my parents I found a picture of myself from when i was maybe 16/17 years old, and I felt like I was in my prime, unstoppable, and from the picture I was doing well for myself, tanned, athletic, playing basketball 5/6 time a week, never at home during the summer, confidence was high, I could wear whatever i wanted and not feel self-conscious.

Fast forward 16 years, poor life choices, an insatiable appetite, long-term relationships, sports injuries, and we have this behemoth,

21 stone (300 lbs) of sheer unadulterated vulgarity (opinions of self), take aways, late nights beers, and not forgetting the eating you children’s meals and then your own.

My shock came on New Years Day when I stepped on the scales, I once vowed never to get like this but lone behold I have let myself down and just be come lazy and ashamed of myself, I have let my self down.

I owe it to my wife, my kids, my health, my joints and myself to make some changes and do something about this.

Now I have this athlete bravado thing where I still think I look awesome and I’m the mutts nuts, truth is I’m the polar opposite, I have self-doubt, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, this is only something recent that has come about in my mindset, and because of this, I choose not to step into a gym until I’M ready. So I recently purchased the BeachBody on Demand catalogue, this gives me programs such as P90X, Insanity, Shift shop, etc. This will hopefully allow me to get a decent sweat on and shift some pounds of weight from my knees and other joints.

Since the turn of the year ive been getting up at 5am, or close to it and following the 21day yoga retreat program, I was more than happy to do this on my own in the early hours of the morning, but each morning so far ive had two little spectators, my boys, now they say kids are like sponges, taking on board anything and everything that you do, so if they are watching me at 5 am then I hope they are taking something on board, turns out I need to learn from them.

Oscar doing his best downward dog.

so this is the drive and motivation I need,

I can’t disappoint my kids, they need me here for as long as possible, I’ve millions of memories more to make with them, we have so much fun to have running around the park playing all sorts of games where they tell me their tired, not the other way around, they shouldnt suffer for my poor choices in the past.

I OWE IT TO THEM.

2017 was a bit of a bummer year.

The year began with all the vim an vigour of any other year, unfortunately come February I was being made redundant, this came with all the trimmings, fear, anxiety, dread, but then I sat with my wife and took stock of what had happened, she really got me that day, making me realise that i dont need to make money for other people when i could parttner with my dad to begin our joint venture in establishing our own roofing firm, this turned out to be one of the best decisions and opporrtunities we could have come across because what lay around the corner would rock our very young marriage to the core, and with two young boys to look after we would need to find a whole new level of team work.

Around about April time my Wife was diagnosed with not ONE but TWO  different cancers, having never dealt personally with cancer in my close family Iwas unaware of how i would deal with the whole prognosis. First it was Skin Cancer from a mole that wouldn’t heal, this was removed via a biopsy with has left her with what appears to be a shark bite on her calf,  a PET scan was done and it was found in the lymph nodes, meaning we had stage 3B Hodgkins Lymphoma. treatment would take 6 months with 12 chemotherapy sessions, where she would be drip fed a cocktail of drugs to help battle the disease. thankfully we got the all clear after the second cycle (4 treatments) and so now we are in recovery mode to help her get as healthy as possible.

I went to the Hague in the Netherlands to participate in a Flag American football tournament  in aid of breast cancer. this tournament was a real eye opener to the level of play needed and level of fitness needed to participate in these tournaments at this level and to succeed, i took an injury in the second to final game for my team which meant i would be visitiong the doctor when i returned home, this turned out to be a good thing, i believed my sore feet after sports was down to shearing of the feet, turns out its a case of Haglunds Deformity, where the heel grows a shelf and puts pressure on the achilles tendon. this is being operated on in late january early february time, with a three month recovery scheduled.

The idea of being off my feet for three months is terrifying for me as i find it super easy to put on weight, and so to combat this i began doing yoga at 5am and have been making more sensible choices to what i eat and drink, hopefully this helps with the recovery as i wont be carrying as much weight and i wil be more supple to help with blood flow to the operated areas. this is one of the reasons for starting this blog, keep my sanity and normalise what is going on in my body.

Any way, i know this was very jumpy and had no real flow, but i will be aiming to do one a week even using this for work related chats. BRD Roofing services on facebook

please leave a comment, good or bad, everything is helpful.

Ross