Hundreds of times better than chocolate. thousands of pounds better than money. The scientifically proven power of a smile. Garr Reynolds

Love this piece from Bill Jensen. He says “I recently had the opportunity to interview Yao Huang, who’s been named one of the top 25 women driving New York’s tech scene. I encourage you to watch her video. Lots of wisdom packed into 8 mins. About half-way thru she describes major life discoveries from her time volunteering in a nursing home: “You can learn a lot from a person as they end their life. They’re going to teach you something. You can listen to it, or not listen to it.” Yao listened. She took away three life lessons from all she met. (Spoken in the forms of regrets..) 1. They wished that they learned more. That they invested more in their own education. 2. They wished that they fell in love and married the right person. Married who they loved, and not for other reasons. 3. They wished they followed their dreams. Then Yao closes with, “I’ll tell you this: When you’re about to die, you’ll think of these three things. Are you going to leave happy, or… or not?… Why are we here? That’s what I think about. I see myself 80 yrs old, looking back at my life and having no regrets. And being happy. I’m at present in control of that. Years from now, I will not be, because it will be in the past. So…Seize the moment.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFhbsuwZAEs

“Its not content overload – its filter failure” so says New York University Professor, Clay Shirky.

Maybe its time for a Content Curator …….

Last week I was invited to a stunning lunch experience organised by Marianne Cantwell and John Williams in London at Wahaca, a very superior Mexican restaurant in Covent Garden. There were 22 of us. Many had written books. Most were consulting. Some were training. Many had set up businesses. Some had sold businesses. What did we all have in common?  We all  had portfolio careers.

On reflection I realised that although Katie and I always use this term others have their own labels. Marianne has a great website for free range humans, John – who has written the excellent book Screw Work Lets Play – prefers to talk about Scanners and has set up  Scanners Nights in London. Nick Williams prefers to talk about Renaissance People. In the US Marci Alboher wrote a book about slash careers.

You know – it really doesn’t matter what term we use. The one thing all of us have in common is that we believe that everyone should explore new ways of working; that we should not put up with work which does not challenge or excite us; that we should define the work life blend that suits us now; that we know that blend will change with circumstances and ageing; that we should know the skills that we want to use (our motivated skills); that we should be able to express to others the values that drive us and finally, to use my own brand byline – we should indeed be the architect of our own future.

And you know we will now have even longer to do all of this as research this week tells us that life expectancy rose by 44 weeks in last year alone. So don’t waste any of those extra weeks. Get reviewing, planning and act now. There is of course a book which will help you to do just that!

Yes, I am speaking at an Inspired Entrepreneurs event on 27th April from 7.15 – 9.30 at Bucks Uni in High Wycombe. If you know anyone who might benefit from this – please pass the info on. Hope to see you there !

My good friend Nick Williams has recently published a new book called THE BUSINESS YOU WERE BORN TO CREATE. A great read with short chapters ideal for the time challenged. One chapter caught my eye entitled “Maybe you are a renaissance soul?” and he quotes Barbara Winter Author of Making a Living without a Job. She says;

” There was a time of course, when it was assumed that a person could be many different things. During the period known as the Renaissance , when the creative spirit was in full bloom, it was not unusual for an individual to be a poet, business owner, artist, soldier, linguist and lover”.

Nick is speaking in High Wycombe on the 30th March. If you attend you also get a copy of his book. Nick is on a mission to help people move beyond their fears, play a bigger part in their lives and turn their passions into profitable businesses.

Happy New Year. So, have you or haven’t you?…… Made new years resolutions that is. This year I have made a big decision to not make any. Just 3 words. Well actually only 2 at the mo…FOCUS and ACTION. What are yours ?

Also have been experimenting with a new iPhone app called Gratitude! It invites you to think of a few things each day that you are grateful for, allows you to add a picture or photo, thought for the day and rate the day out of a possible five stars.It doesn’t take long and helps to focus on what is going well with your life. I love the photo of the day feature and the fact that you can look back over a week or so and appreciate people and experiences more.

There you are …short and sweet

Meet Milo…the virtual human that reacts to a person’s emotions, body movements and voice. (Please watch the video.)

Designed to be used with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect – its a new revolution in story telling says its creator Peter Molyneux.  ”His mind is in the cloud. As millions of people use it Milo will get smarter”.

And therein lies the rub. Are you doing something today that Milo could do tomorrow? If there isn’t something special about what you do and the way you do it, Milo will be doing it for you and most importantly, your customers very soon.