I despise Masterchef. Phew, it’s good to say that publicly. I hate it not because it is bad television – that’s a matter of taste – but because each week more than 1.5 million Australians watch people they don’t really care about working their patooties off trying to make their dreams come true. The result? Another 10 hours wasted (multiplied by 1.5 million) that these viewers could have spent… (read more at) http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/lifes-too-short-for-reality-tv-20110707-1h4or.html#ixzz1RSZJPLNN

In advertising there’s a thing called a ‘torture test’ where you take a product’s most important feature – it’s ‘unique selling proposition’ – and demonstrate it to the nth degree. SUVs drive up mountains, the Duracell bunny climbs sheer cliffs, and cleaning sprays spruce up a kitchen after a teenage boy has had his mates round for a massive bender.

I mention this up to explain why I learnt so much about life and work from co-authoring my latest book, What I Wish I Knew about Nursing. This wonderful profession is one big torture test. I reckon if we can’t learn something about how to work, live and love better from speaking to people who bring their heart and soul to their job – and face life or death decision every single day – then we’re just not trying.

There are so many lessons in this book that are applicable to all of us, but I’m going to put down the most obvious 5 of them over the next 3 weeks so you’ll hopefully gain as much admiration for these wonderful, big hearted people as I did.

1. Never lose your sense of humour

Nancy Fontaine, 45, Professor of Nursing, spent 18 years as an emergency nurse and remembers many occasions where she used humour to help her team. Like one time when she was in the middle of chest compressions, resuscitating a patient, when a man – who had earlier been admitted with a pear inserted where no one should ever insert a pear – entered the room, having removed the piece of fruit himself. The man interrupted proceedings and blurted out ‘What should I do with this?’ Nancy said ‘I looked up from my chest compressions and said, “Stuff it with sultanas, bake it in port and top it off with cream.” The team were in hysterics but we all continued resuscitating the patient while “Pear Man” was removed by security.

Nancy’s quote for What I Wish I Knew about Nursing is

It is vital to openly encourage teams to use humour to cope with tragedy and sadness. Humour is actually a very serious business which permits nursing to erode the archaic façade of professional detachment, forms deep bonds and creates a choreographed evasion of harrowing situations so that the focus is provision of life saving interventions for patients. I believe it must be celebrated as an acceptable and appropriate mechanism to cope and care simultaneously.

Coming back to the idea of a torture test, next time you can’t keep your sense of humour because the office fax has packed it in again, take two big deep breaths and say to yourself “Well, at least while I’m trying to fix this machine I know I won’t be hassled by an idiot who loves pears a little too much.”

What I Wish I Knew about Nursing is a book I co-authored with my wife, Allie, who is a Registered Nurse. (Of course when I say ‘co-authored’ I mean Allie thought of the idea, pitched it at Royal College of Nursing, Australia, got them on board, did all the interviews, and wrote the book. But I did proof read the whole thing twice. (Okay, ran spell check.)

It’s available from our website, and from the RCNA

Without blowing too much smoke up my own patootie, I’m pretty please with this article in the Herald today on loving your work. Click on the image to see a pdf open up in your browser, hope you get something out of it. 

Thanks to our evolution, and our physiology, there’s no way to avoid that big burst of adrenaline yo get when you try something different. But you can change how you interpret it. The first thing to do is change how you describe it because in English the only words for ‘that big burst of adrenaline we all get when we’re out of our comfort zone’ are bad – nerves, knots in the stomach…

Many years ago, a friend, John O’Connor, and I came up with a new word for ‘that feeling you get when you’re trying something different’. We decided to call it “Newfeeling.” In the same way that you feel hot when you walk into a hot room, when you walk outside your comfort zone you get newfeeling. Then you get to CHOOSE if ‘hot’ is good or bad, and you can decide if ‘newfeeling’ is okay too.

I know it seems like a small thing to do. Sometimes when I say it out loud it even seems like an incredibly wanky thing to do. (Please insert a Californian accent) “Don’t call it fear, call it newfeeling”. To be honest, that’s probably why it took me ten years to tell people about the idea.

But – getting all grandiose and learned for a minute – the Philosopher Wittgenstein said: “The limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world.” The number of ways you can talk about something determines the number of ways you can think about something.

So change the word, change the meaning, change the feeling,

And I can picture some of the furrowed brows reading this, thinking “Cute word. But what good is it to business?” When you allow yourself to feel the adrenaline without attaching words like “fear” or “scared” or “nerves” to it, you don’t beat yourself up so much. You even start to welcome it as a sign you’re stretching yourself and growing your business. Before your first day at a new job, you don’t have knots on your stomach. You have newfeeling. Of course you do, it’s a new job. Before a sales call, you’re not scared or nervous, you’ve got newfeeling. Walking into the big new business pitch you can say to your team  “I think my undies are full of newfeeling.”

As you’ll know by now I don’t use this thing to promote stuff very often, so when I do you’ll appreciate that it’s got to be really good (or have some enormous financial windfall to me.)
I’m going to do my regular entry later this week, but hot of the virtual presses is a great issue of a fantastic online magazine called Fear.less that comes out of New York. It was launched by Ishita Gupta, who’s name you might know as the ‘Head of Hoopla’ for marketing giant Seth Godin. Every month it has interviews with people who have different points of view and loads of practical tips for facing your fears and leaping out of your comfort zone. Those of you who know how ridiculously proud I am of my gorgeous wife, Allie, for conquering her arachnophobia will know keen I am on this.

And, full disclosure, I’m one of the four people they interview this month’s issue. So if you want to read some fantastic ways to get over your money worries, work through pain, find your true calling in life, AND check out an interview with me where I talk about how to show off on stage with confidence, have a look here.

Fear.less

Please feel free to send this on to anyone who might be a bit stuck in their own world.
Back on Friday with news about the new book written by my fearless wife, Allie. (Arachnophobia – gone! Public Speaking – gone!).
HoorooMarty

I can’t stop grinning, read on.

Here is Al Callaghan’s page from my Mumhood book.

And here’s the email I got from Al earlier.

Hi Marty

I got my very specially signed book today – THANK YOU.

As you know we lost Mum only 3 weeks after my first child, Lucy, was born. Well with Mother’s Day coming up, I have been feeling a little low – very bloody low actually! And tonight, while my husband, Bren, is watching the rugby, I’ve been sitting next to him reading “What I wish I knew about motherhood” – THANK YOU. I have laughed while reading it, and I have cried too. But what it has made me remember is that I’m not the only one who has had a sad/tragic/”swearword” experience.  So now I’ll enjoy Mother’s Day with my 2 beautiful, happy and healthy children, and I’ll think of my Mum, thank her, and know that she’d be proud of me.

It really is a brilliant book. I’m so happy for you that it’s received such great publicity. Congratulations Marty, and a huge THANK YOU for making me stop being a sook!!

Thanks Al, and thanks just one more time to all the Mums
Marty

I’m the type of self-important tosser who refuses to buy flowers for my wife on Valentine’s Day, but will leap in the front door a week before, or a week after, just to show that “I won’t be told when I show my wife I love her.” So, rather than cash in on the goodwill of the nation for a newsletter on mums (that’s what my motherhood book is for!) I thought I’d post something out now. After the family barbeque has been cleaned up – probably by a mum – and everyone has gone back to taking it all for granted again.

It’s only in the last few years – when I’ve been scratching and clawing to get this ‘full time authoring’ gig up and running – that I’ve fully come to appreciate just how good for you a nice big dollop of hardship is. My mate, Anh Do, says he was brought up with his mum in his ear saying ‘Your greatest challenge is your greatest blessing’ and I’m starting to understand it. Those times in your life when you get thrown in the deep end are the only times you really expand your noggin and your heart. And, after interviewing almost a hundred mums for What I Wish I Knew about Motherhood, I think I’m beginning to appreciate why mums are so special.

All the mums I spoke to agreed that, from day one of pregnancy, the motherhood experience slaps you further out of your comfort zone than you’ve ever been before. The whole thing is more intense, more challenging and more glorious than anything in life—and it’s all those things at the same time. Add to that that mums have to embrace the most challenging months in a state of energy-sapping, brain-thickening sleep deprivation that no amount of happy-clappy visualisations about ‘Huggies moments’ will get you through. (My gorgeous wife, Allie, told me that she was so tired, she had a mental checklist to run through every time she left the house: ‘Have I brushed my hair? Have I cleaned my teeth? Am I wearing knickers?’)

All this adds up to an incredibly poignant time of accelerated evolution that leaves you dazed, but with a much deeper understanding of life and yourself. Motherhood is a wonderful, exhausting, delightful and arduous lesson that the real nature of life is change, chaos and spontaneity. It’s something that us dads—except the lucky ones who take on the full-time parenting role – only partly understand.

So, if I could share one tip from almost all the mums I spoke with, it would be the notion that ‘This too will pass’—as the mums said, ‘When it’s bad, it will get better. When it’s wonderful, be in that moment because it won’t last.’

Motherhood is the perfect lesson in impermanence. There is only right now.

That’s why mums have a deep knowledge that all us men who run around trying to impose our despotic will upon the universe will never attain.

Well, that’s my little theory anyway. If you don’t believe me, just ask your mum. She’d probably appreciate some attention in the week AFTER Mother’s Day anyway.

Hooroo
Marty

Firstly let me apologise for such a long break. I had this bloke working on my blog and website who said “It’ll be ready in a fortnight”. And he kept saying it for about two months.

Anyhoo, it’s all up and running so please have a look around.

The other big news is my new book, What I Wish I Knew about Motherhood is in all good bookstores (and a few in receivership).

The main thing I wanted to chat about is how interviewing almost 100 mums made me a much better dad.

So here’s my ‘three things that dads could only learn by having a good old natter to a bunch of great mums.’

1. You cannot do just one thing at a time

It’s so true it’s a cliché, but men really are hopeless at multitasking. That’s why we have to turn the stereo down in the car when we’re reading a map. But with kids sticking on the one track means you miss some of the great stuff.

Men would like to have a conversation like this: “This coffee is great, isn’t it? Can you believe what that idiot Mark Latham said about Julia Gillard? How badly does he want attention? He’d rather be in the paper being called an evil buffoon than not in it at all. Don’t you reckon?“

Whereas when there are kids around, you have to be able to talk like this:

This coffee is great, isn’t it? (Connor take your fingers out of your brother’s nose) Can you believe what that idiot Mark Latham said about Julia Gillard? (Elliot, beans are not lightsabers) How badly does he want attention? (Finish your lunch or no ice cream) Remember that trip to Italy? (No you have to eat all of it.) He’d rather be in the paper being called an evil buffoon than not in it at all. (Well done boys, high fives and ice creams all round) Don’t you reckon?

2. Control freaks need not apply

Women are so much better than men at letting go and rolling with the punches. Katherine Beaumont’s page is such a great example of this. Getting frustrated with kids haphazard existence is like screaming at the sky “Stop being so infuriatingly blue!” Kids very nature, their very reason for being, is to be a little bundle of randomness thoughts and deeds. If you try to impose any kind of order on them they will drive you insane. Of course the newborn does one of those ‘So far up his back it comes out the neck of his jumpsuit’ poos when you’re about to walk out the door, of course they want to wear the only dress they have that isn’t washed.

3. Kids want our most precious resource, time.

All kids really want and need is your attention. And when things aren’t going smoothly, it’s almost always a bit of one-on-one time that fixes it. Children live totally in the here and now, and that’s where they want you. Not sitting with them but off in our heads somewhere else. As one mum said “They don’t care whether you buy them a $50 bike or a $500 bike, all they care about is whether you’ll spend 5 hours teaching them to ride it.”

After listening to almost a hundred mothers open up and talk about the wonder and anxiety of pregnancy, the mind-bending tiredness of those first few months—‘like walking through treacle’—and how the tiniest smile from their child can make twelve hours of horror disappear from their memory, I think I finally got it. (Kind of.)

Well, at least now I know just how much I don’t know. One thing I do now understand is that every man on this planet should thank his mum, his wife, and every woman he sees walking along, patiently ignoring a child chanting, ‘Can I have a drink, Mum? Can I have a drink, Mum? Can I have a drink, Mum?’ We should fall at their feet, weep tears of gratitude and confess that all the little ‘everyday’ things they do add up to a debt we can never repay.

So that’s it from me. It feels good to get back on the horse and be pestering the world again.

Until next time, when I sprout out my own little pet theory on why mums are so extraordinary, I’ll say

Hooroo

Marty

To become an stalky, obsessed facebook fan, using the bosses time to catch up on the series, go to

http://whatiwishiknew.com/facebook

Hi All,

In the fine tradition of What I Wish I Knew, my wonderful missus, Allie, gave me this fantastic card for my birthday today. (43, you cheeky thing for even asking!) On the inside it said “Thanks goodness we all get better with age.”

I can’t stop wondering what Bill & Hillary would say they wished they knew in this photo, so I thought I’d throw it open to readers of my newsletter, blog, facebook and spam.

The best thought from Bill and the best thought from Hillary wins an advance copy of What I Wish I Knew about Motherhood when it’s out in 2011.

Please submit all answers on my blog here

Hope you’re almost over the line for 2010.

Very plenty bestest

Marty

I’ve finished my interviews for the Cancer book now, and there are some heavy and yet wonderful chats are ‘in the can.’ (That can’t be the right expression, but there you go.)

Talking with these amazing people has led me to be incredibly grateful for how ridiculously lucky I, and my whole extended family, have been healthwise. There’s been a lot of cuddles for my wife and kids and lots of silent thoughts of “Thank you God, Fate or whomever is responsible for my good fortune.”

The book will have all the quotes from my interview with a bloke called Warrick Try, but I wanted to pass on a text I got from him about a week after we spoke. Here’s his story and the text.

Warrick Try, 68, partied pretty hard into his thirties and smoked until he was 50. Then, six years after quitting cigarettes, he started feeling a little breathless but thought it was ‘old age creeping up’. Then some X-Rays after a skiing accident revealed he had cancer which had almost closed off his right lung. At the time Warrick had a wife and five children – the youngest being only five – so it was a very traumatic time. He had an operation to remove his lung was removed and it seemed to have gotten rid of the lung cancer. Since then, however, Warrick has cancer of the bladder, cancer of the prostate, cancer of the eye and several malignant melanomas – and gotten through them all.

In December last year, he was having one of his regular check-ups and it was discovered that his PSA levels had risen – his prostate cancer was back – and a course of chemotherapy was recommended.

Warrick decided to get his body as fit as possible to help his chances of getting through the chemo well. He joined a gym for the first time, changed his diet, and improved his whole lifestyle. In an amazing turnaround, Warrick quickly saw dramatic changes in his body shape and fitness, and his PSA levels got lower and lower. In his latest blood test it’s down to 0.001 – almost undetectable – and for the first time in twelve years the doctors have pronounced Warrick Cancer free.

Is this guy tough as nails or what?

His quotes in the final book are all great, but I wanted to share this text that he sent me.

“G’day Marty. Forgot one thing ‘When cancer is first diagnosed, some people start to die almost immediately, others start to live. The choice is yours.’”

I used to be signed up to one of those quote sites that send you this sort of stuff in your email every day, and now I get messages like that from real people. In this case, someone I’ve met personally who has kicked cancer’s arse four or five times now.

I love my job!