Palm trees and margaritas
(empowered living)

Hi there.

Palm trees and margaritas is one! This issue marks one year of publishing this monthly newsletter (yes, it’s issue 11 as we don’t publish in December). What started with me writing an article about seizing the day and being grateful for life, became three newsletters to see if anyone liked them, followed by feedback so incredible that I have described Palm trees and margaritas as perhaps the most rewarding writing I have ever done.

We started a small website, I have added Palm trees and margaritas to my professional speaking topics and am proud to announce that Palm trees and margaritas – the book is on its way (perhaps the ideal Christmas gift!)

Thank you to all of you who read and respond and please keep reading and responding … and forwarding ‘Palm trees and margaritas’ on to anyone you think might enjoy it.

‘Palm trees and margaritas’, the newsletter, is about life, the universe and what really matters. If we were to seek to categorise it, ‘Palm trees and margaritas’ is about work/life balance. None of us knows how our life will unfold so as much as we are in control, empowered living means making sure there is time in our lives for palm trees and margaritas*, however we define them.

It aims to give you five minutes of reflective reading time on the last Friday of each month.

How was your month?

 

 

 

Karen Morath
karen@mpowercct.com
www.palmtreesandmargaritas.com
June 2007

 

TIPS

  1. Keep a tub of body moisturiser in your car. I guarantee there are a zillion ways you will use it over a year. (Bandaids, dental floss, tissues, a notepad and pen and a book to read in emergencies will all come in handy too.)
  2. Do whatever you can to remove the toxins from your life. I don’t mean food and alcohol. Some people are so poisonous it can take days to regain your optimism after spending time with them. Life is too short to spend any of it with people whose company makes you (feel) less than you are.
  3. If you are working on a major project or trying to solve a problem, invest in some creative time out. Go to the movies or lie on the couch and read a book. The very act of escapism that these things require, can create a solution to your problem or increased energy directed at the task, just by enabling your mind to wander and reflect.
  4. “Decide, once and for all, that your happiness or unhappiness is primarily up to you.” Dr Harold Bloomfield
  5. Plant some seedlings. I spent 45 minutes planting white alyssum and blue violas the other day and transformed the entrance to my house. Truly a simple pleasure.

 

TO ENJOY LIST

 

 

A couple of readers have recommended the Great Ocean Walk which goes from Apollo Bay to Glenample Homestead (http://www.greatoceanwalk.com.au/) along the Great Ocean Road.

 

I wonder where readers regard as the best 'to enjoy' place to take kids in Australia, if you were restricted (by opportunity or imagination) to just one place? Canberra gets my vote. It's great to see your own country's capital. Kids get an insight into politics, economics, the law, architecture, art and it's fun and (I think) beautiful. The best part for families is most of the places of interest are free or very low cost.

Where do you think is the best place in Australia for kids 'to enjoy'? Please email me and I will publish your responses next month.

STORIES

  1. Self-esteem is what enables and empowers us to perform not just at our best, some times to perform at all. We have to convince ourselves we are up to the next challenge and the one after that. Confidence comes from within, but a little bit of moral support from the peanut gallery never hurt. Can you relate to my friend, a man in his late forties who is a global expert in his field and travels the world at the pointy end of the plane, speaking and conducting seminars earning incredible fees? His father asks him why anyone would fly him to America (or wherever). “Don’t they have people there who can do what you do?”
  2. There was an article on a woman in her nineties in the paper a few weeks ago. She had just graduated from university and was enrolling in a master’s degree. (But of course!) Talking on radio, personal trainer Craig Harper reflected that she was evidence that we age when we allow ourselves to age and that she had decided to think differently from her cohort who considered themselves ‘old’. He appealed to us to ‘go for it’ if we felt like it and to reject the conventions of age-based behaviour. It reminded me of my 86 year old great aunt Mavis who regularly volunteers to help “the elderly”.
  3. I haven’t shared jokes from the world of the 10 year old for a while and the world truly is a better place when we allow ourselves to indulge in a bit of nonsense. So how do you make holy water? Burn the hell out of it of course.

 

READER STORIES

 

 

 

It was reader Derek’s cologne story in the last issue that attracted the most attention from readers. Reader Anthony said he had a special cologne that he had bought overseas that always made him “feel sexy” but was struggling with the irony that as his wife “hates it”, it never allowed him to actually “get sexy”.

Before you think, as I did when I first thought about that story, ‘ditch the cologne’, consider reader Ros’ reaction to reading of Derek’s wife throwing out $400 worth of cologne just because she liked her man in the cologne she was familiar with.

“I was bemused by the expenditure of $400 on cologne and its accompaniments since I have other priorities in the line of personal products. It does have me pondering the wasteful way we live as oil becomes scarce, the weather changes and water becomes more precious…I see our lives needing to change to a simpler and leaner way with more meaning and a return to some realities such as how things really taste and how much we really need.”

REFLECTIONS

 

  1. Scientist and inventor Max Whisson is in his seventies now. His contribution to Australia and to science has been extraordinary. He has six sons and is still friends but not living with his second wife. On Australian Story recently he acknowledged that he had not given them a secure life nor been a great father or husband. He said it was and is more important to “follow your spirit, what you think you’re good at.” Is it? Or is the price too high?
  2. I’ve been wondering.  I read newspapers, books and magazines, watch TV, go to the movies and the occasional live production. Should I get Foxtel?

 

Copyright 2007.  Karen Morath

 

Karen Morath is a consultant, speaker and writer.  Her company M Power works with individuals and organisations to devise empowering communication strategies.  Visit www.communicationempowers.com or there’s something to see at www.palmtreesandmargaritas.com

To book Karen to speak on ‘Life can’t be all palm trees and margaritas, but there are worse game plans’ at your next event, you can email her at karen@mpowercct.com or telephone in Australia 03 9817 4111.

Please forward Palm trees and margaritas to anyone you think may enjoy it.

 

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