Monday Motivation Magic

Yesterday was a struggle. I was tired. I felt flat. Motivation had gone missing. Some days have been like that.

Thankfully, they’ve been rare. I’m a positive person and try to make the best out of what’s in front of me. That’s why through lockdown so far I’ve played games, done stupid workouts in my garden, made silly videos, gone on walks to discover fairy glens, and cooked so much good food.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel today. Would this be a good day or another case of the lockdown blues?

Well, it got off to the kind of start that I couldn’t help but smile at.

Let me explain.

I’ve worked with the team at Putney Chiropractic and Chiro London for nearly five years now. About three years ago, I had an idea.

You see, these guys aren’t just brilliant chiropractors, they are interesting, intelligent, and fun people. And they’ve built an incredible community who trust them and look to them for guidance.

“Why don’t we do a weekly email?” I said. “Like the kind Tim Ferris does, but better. If it’s going to work it can’t be about chiropractic. It has to be about things people will find interesting.”

The response at first was skeptical: “An email a week? Surely that’s too much. Do people really care about what we think? Won’t it just be spam? What will we put in it?”

Luckily, we decided to give it a try. We called the email Monday Motivation and (bar a few exceptions) it’s gone out every week without fail ever since. We tried stopping it once, and there was an outcry from the community who wanted it back in their lives.

It shares everything from interesting articles through to life hacks and everything else in between. And it’s played an incredibly important role in building strong relationships with their clients and creating a community.

And right now, relationships and community are more important than ever.

So, even though the clinics are closed for all but emergencies, the emails are still going out. They’ve been changed to Mindful Monday and there’s the addition of Thoughtful Thursday.

What was magical about today’s email, is it wasn’t from one of the Docs. It was from Craig Mclean’s kids, Charli and Lachie, aged 10 and 12. And it was brilliant.

You can read it here - it’s full of amazing ideas for kids and made me smile as soon as I opened it up (seriously, read it, it’s awesome).

The thing about ideas is you never know where they are going to take you. You can feel confident that something might work but you have no real idea of what it’s going to be like in practice until you throw it out there.

I love these emails. I love how well they’re received. I love that these guys trusted me enough to run with them. And today was the icing on the cake. 

Well done Charli and Lachie, superstars in the making right there and if you could do regular guest slots (just to save us all having to read about your Dad’s cycling that would be amazing!).

And for the rest of us, have faith in ideas. Believe in them. Give them wings. Not everyone is going to fly. But some will soar and delight you in the most unexpected ways.

What’s that Wayne Gretzky quote? “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Keep taking those shots. Especially now. Everything is uncertain and unknown. 

But we can still be brilliant if we have the courage to do so.

(Disclaimer: It’s also perfectly ok to have not so brilliant days where you eat lots of chocolate, watch Netflix and play computer games. But maybe these are equally brilliant in different ways?)