As mentioned yesterday, waking with a whiskey hangover after 6 hours sleep was NOT a good way to deal with my jet lag but boys will be boys.

After my usual morning rituals of social media management, blogging and setting up my priorities for the day, it was time for my second training session on the rented bike.

I was determined to get down to The Sydney Opera House and retrace my steps around that iconic structure for the second time in my life, the last trip being in 1986.

That was after first riding to Darling Harbour and just marvelling at the city skyline, which reminds me so much of Vancouver, Mumbai, Chicago and other coastal cities. I find the shining glass and steel towers inspirational and a real testament to the creativity of mankind when our energies and talents are focused on positive outcomes.

Less enjoyable was dodging the morning traffic (my own fault for choosing a time when commuters are making their way to work). In fairness, the experienced cyclist would know how to navigate the numerous cycle pathways that the city authorities have created but this novice was on trial and error, keeping 360 degree awareness at all times.

Another unexpected pleasure was riding through Surrey Hills, a suburb just south of the Central Business District (CBD). What a beautiful urban village, full of small shops and the inevitable Internet cafes and looking like a great place to hang out – note to self.

Back after my ride, it was time to get my head down to more work ON the business.

Objective 1 – email inbox zero.

Objective 2 – create the August Coach Barrow Newsletter, focused on my Autumn Business Retreat, scheduled for 2-4 November 2018 and once again at the beautiful 38 Devonshire Street practice in Marylebone

The feedback from my last 2 retreats has been very positive and I’ve been happily persuaded by clients and others to make this a regular feature in the calendar. The newsletter has gone off to be “Mailchimp-ed’ and should be out in a few days time.

Objective 3 was to schedule events around the new Coach Barrow Tribe:

A weekly Facebook Live broadcast.

A monthly tutorial for senior team members.

A monthly video interview with a success story in business and life.

These will be some of the benefits of my new membership site launching 1st October 2018 and you will a lot more about that in time.

I successfully allocated dates and times through to December 2019.

Objective 4 was to start the process of creating marketing collateral for The Extreme Business Workshop programme for 2019. With the help of Phillippa Goodwin, we have outlined the programme content to our day to day graphic designer Jamie Cottrell and I now await his first draft of next year’s brochure.

Busy times indeed and the down-time in Australia has been priceless so far in planning 2019.

Mid-afternoon I reluctantly cycled back to Centennial Park and handed back the rental bike, then enjoyed a good long walk back to my apartment on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

My evening was dinner and chats with one of my oldest friends in coaching Michael Myerscough.

We met in the mid 90’s, part of the original UK input to the late Thomas Leonard’s Coach University.

Michael is an expert relationship counsellor for married couples.

Some years ago he decided he’d had enough of living in North London and battling with traffic, prices and people.

The first thing he did was to spend 4 years (that’s 4 years) travelling around the world and running his coaching practice by telephone from wherever he landed. He literally saw the planet and his photo diary at the time was inspirational.

Arriving eventually in Sydney, he decided to set roots here for a while and now lives in Bondi and divides his time between counselling, yoga and horse riding.

He is a former and rather temporary TV celebrity over here as he was recently featured on a reality series called “The Last Resort” in which seemingly broken couples were shipped to a Fijian Island to be “mended”.

You can see the showreel for the series on Michael’s web site home page.

By his own admission, the show tanked and received some of the worst reviews in Australian TV history.

Michael is stoic about the experience, realising the fickle nature of the TV business and has remarkably recovered from what could have been a confidence shattering experience.

It jus goes to show how some of our endeavours can be determined by accidents of timing and external circumstance, no matter how good the idea.

Compare the fate of The Last Resort with the recent viral success of Love Island in the UK.

It was great to catch up with a Paleo soulmate who doesn’t drink!

A superb day ends with an early night, prior to day 1 of my Sydney workshop tomorrow.