Most of you know that my business partner here is a man called Keith Watson. He was a nurse of 30 years and him and I have been in business together for over a decade now. He deals with all things web-related, marketing related, technical related and does virtually everything for the company except the hypnosis stuff, which I do 🙂

A couple of years ago, Keith had a heart attack and has had ongoing heart issues. He follows advice, exercises regularly and has ongoing tests and examinations. Then in the past year he was diagnosed as having cancer. He decided to tell me by throwing that in at the end of a phone conversation we had at the time, he basically shrugged it off in a rather blase fashion. He has been dealing with that and getting treatment for it ongoing too. Then last Saturday, he had a stroke.

What is so utterly typical about Keith, was that while in his hospital bed, he sent out an email broadcast to a couple of our distribution lists here about an offer he had set up just before his stroke. It was barely readable, I joked with him yesterday that he has to have all outgoing communications checked for ‘non-gibberishness’for the next couple of weeks at least. You see, Keith had a determination, a sense of duty, and a zest for life that means he wants to ‘get back on the horse’ straight away. Even if it meant that his post-stroke state was not really able to string together coherent sentences, his drive to carry on was there.

He came out of hospital yesterday and him and I had a lengthy discussion about a variety of things, his speech was slightly impaired but he kept on insisting that he was absolutely fine. He still has plans and ambitions and most of all, he has a love of what he does and what we do here.

I spoke with Keith’s lovely wife while he was in hospital and we agreed that he needed to take things easy and have time away from the business and even she stated that he just loves what he does and that love drives him on to get better, to recover, to enjoy his life, to continue supporting Arsenal football club avidly, to continue going to live music gigs at every opportunity, to continue with his busy and varied social life, to continue playing badminton as he does each week, and of course – to continue working so hard and seeing what can be done to develop and enjoy running our business together.

While catching up with my emails yesterday, I sent a message to a good friend of mine to tell her that dealing with adversity tells you a lot about someone. With Keith, his attitude, manner and character are all things I find inspiring and make me wonder if I’d be able to be the same in the same situation; I aspire to be that way for sure.

I have been inundated with messages, comments, calls and emails from people wishing Keith a speedy recovery. Many people who do not even know him that well – such has been the way he is perceived. A lovely man. A loving man. A lover of life.

For the new year ahead, I have running goals, I have business objectives, I have aims for my darling family, all things I have scribed and meticulously planned…. Exponentially more than written plans though, I also aim to enrich my daily experience of life; to love more, fear less, enjoy more of the moments that make up my days, because life is precious and how we react and respond to challenges we face becomes such an influence to those around us and helps us to become the type of person we aspire to be.

For me, this period of adversity faced by a man that is my dear friend and business partner has helped me to clarify the direction I am to take in 2015. Whatever your goals, whatever your desired outcomes, whatever your plans, I hope you feel inspired to discover the direction you’d like 2015 to go in, or that you go find some inspiration…. and if you need more skills and ideas of how to achieve them, keep reading this hypnosis blog of mine, because I’ll be back posting regular techniques and strategies again in the New Year.

Have a fabulous celebration tonight, much love to you all, thank you for reading this year….

Toodle-loo 2014.
2015, I’m coming to get you.