Here’s a little tour of our alojamento local! We’ve been getting it all ready for our guests tomorrow and we will have the added pressure of welcoming our guests in front of the A New Life In The Sun TV cameras.
We have been busy trying to get our massage therapy room ready this week but have found that the electrics need a bit more attention, so stay tuned for updates on that!
I hope you enjoy the video!
This week the UK government said that it wants to ban cigarette smoking in pub gardens, outside nightclubs and around children’s play parks. Now, it would be hard to find a reasonable argument for being allowed to smoke in or around a kids play park, but I’m not sure about elsewhere. Here’s what I think…
I am living in central Portugal. Cigarettes are still sold in cafe vending machines. Supermarkets have Tobacaria shops inside them and even cafe bars attached to them. Doing your weekly shop, stopping for a smoke while downing a beer or wine before loading your car and driving away is common.
I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore but do occasionally vape electronically in private. I haven’t openly smoked anything since becoming a dad and a Personal Trainer. Smoking while doing either of those jobs is not cool. But I don’t begrudge anybody else smoking. In fact, seeing people sitting around a table outside a cafe in Sertá, chatting and laughing in different languages makes me feel happy and truth be known, before I moved here, it was one of the images that I went to sleep imagining. The cafe music, the different languages and the server bringing out olives and wine on a sunny day, all under a cloud of Marlboro is all very European. That appeals to me.
Some of my best memories of holidays abroad haven’t necessarily been on a beach or doing karaoke at an all inclusive, but visiting an art gallery or castle in Europe. And it was always followed by sitting outside a cafe to talk about what I had discovered, either with my family or with complete strangers.
And although in the beer garden at Wetherspoons there was plenty of alcohol and smoking, I never did get onto the subject of how the Duomo bell tower was constructed with its customers.
Ah yes. Wetherspoons. Where you can openly shout about hating foreigners while drinking Belgian beer. After that, you can go for a Turkish kebab, watch American TV or cheer on a few Africans in your favourite football team on your Japanese TV while sitting on a Swedish sofa. In the morning, you can drive your German car and if you have an accident you will be seen by a Spanish nurse. Once you are better again, you can go back to Wetherspoons and shout about those ‘bloody foreigners’ in a building most likely to be funded by the European Union. Just remember to wipe your feet on the way out.
And before you start criticising me for being down on Britishness, Wetherspoons is and continues to be a very big factor in what is the cause of a loss of Britishness on the high streets. The Wetherspoons franchise has slowly dismantled the great British pub. You can’t get your piss stained peanuts from a bowl at the bar while drinking a pint of Best at the local Fox and Hounds anymore because Tim Martin came along with his cheap drinks and all day breakfast.
Traditional pubs are ceasing to exist anymore and for all we can blame smoking bans and energy costs, the fact remains that Tim Martin will always be able to make his food and drink way cheaper than Sandra the landlady at The Fox And Hounds.
‘But what about this new smoking ban, Shay?!’ I hear you all ask. ‘Surely it is better for our health and will be less of a burden to the NHS?!’
Smoking is not the number one factor in what causes the two most deadly killers in the UK (heart disease and Alzheimer’s). In fact, everything else they sell in a pub or nightclub are by far the major reasons. That all day breakfast? The Belgian beer or the pint of Best?
In 2022 there were just over 10,000 alcohol related deaths. Obesity causes 30,000 deaths each year. Food and drink related deaths are on the rise and will soon be above smoking related deaths in the years to come. I’m not saying that smoking is better, but it does seem to be the scapegoat when the government talks about unburdening the NHS.
When I watch UK TV I am bombarded by adverts telling me to eat fast food and drink alcohol. Not only is fast food or alcohol not banned but perfectly celebrated as the stuff we should be doing, promoted on national TV!
So eating and drinking crap in a pub is fine, but dare to step into its garden and light up a cigarette and you’re a pariah. You see, it makes no sense.
When I became a PT I wanted to give a different message to what I was seeing and hearing from mainstream gyms and media. It is also how I’ve continued to work at our health and wellbeing centre in Portugal. The misunderstanding from gyms and the media is that health and wellbeing is all about physical health and wellbeing. But I think a little differently.
If society (or your PT) is constantly berating your lifestyle choices such as what you eat, drink or smoke, then this is not going to be a positive contribution to your mindset or your life. You don’t employ a PT for them to tell you that lettuce is better for you than a pizza, or water is better for you than a gin and tonic. Nor should you employ a PT to tell you that not smoking is better for you than smoking.
Balancing these better for you things and the not as good for you things, for me, is the much better position to be in regarding our mental health. This, in turn, can contribute to a more active lifestyle and produce better physical results.
Smoking ten cigarettes a day instead of 20 is a fantastic start. Having a fortnightly takeaway is better than a weekly takeaway and drinking a few beers three nights of the week instead of five is going to positively impact you further.
No bans. No stress. No guilt. Just small things that we call balance.
So, my conclusion and my two penn’orth in the smoking debate is this…
Keep cigarettes, takeaways and alcohol and get rid of Wetherspoons. Society in the UK will seem like a much brighter place.
This week we signed up to a site that will promote our holiday home on several platforms. Although they said that it will take up to ten days to be on all of their participating platforms, we have been getting informed when a platform is showing our property online already. So far we are going live on Travel Nest and Holidu. Here’s a link to Holidu…
https://www.holidu.co.uk/d/57716090
We are still working and developing the interior and exterior, so the photos aren’t perfect, but we just needed to get the property up and running. We will be updating our pics as we keep putting stuff in place (I never knew how much brain power it would take to decide on where to put a coffee machine).
And when I say several platforms, we are literally going to be shown everywhere. So much so that I expect the Mashco Piro tribe in Peru to get an alert once our pics are updated.
We still have a massage therapy and shop to reconstruct, plus a possibility of a second holiday home on the property but, for now, for the sake of our sanity, our first job is complete.
We’re going live.
Some books have chapters that are just a page or two long. Others can be twelve or more. But generally, with the more contemporary styles, we see chapters at around five pages. This advice is what many novice writers are given as a guide and it equates to about 5-6 thousand words.
I like that there are no set rules to the size of a chapter in a book. I’m not good with rules. Of course, I’m not a total anarchist. I follow most rules. I would, for example, respectfully follow the rule that I had to wear a gym shirt belonging to the commercial gym that I trained at even though I didn’t work for them. A silly rule, I thought, but I towed the line.
I stick to speed limits on the road, I pay my bills on time and I push the toothpaste out from the bottom of the tube. Ok. That last one is my wife’s rule and it’s an important one.
And then there’s the GNR. That is the name of the Portuguese police. If they pull you over in the car or stop you in the street you must have your documents on hand to prove that you are able to be in the country. They can be quite intimidating. Their uniform is much more military and their role isn’t the same as the police in the UK. You won’t see the GNR dancing at a street parade or being questioned by a youtuber calling themselves an ‘auditor’. If they want to see my documents, it is not the time for me to start questioning their rules. I know the punishment for questioning where I squeeze the tube of toothpaste from, I dread to think of what the consequences are for arguing with the GNR.
But if I were to write a book about my journey over the past year, I would make the chapters short, snappy and to the point. That would be my rule. The law, in fact. For example, if I were writing the chapter on my current situation, it would read something like…
“The builders came, renovated the guest house and left.”
There. Chapter done. Move on. Otherwise it becomes boring and tedious.
But this chapter is never ending, it seems. I’d like it to be over so that I can continue with my story. The novel ‘The Passenger’ has a chapter that weighs in at a mighty 62 pages. This arrives at chapter 5 in the book.
Maybe my life is a chapter 5. Sure, I feel like a passenger as I eagerly wait to begin renting out the guest house and promoting my fitness events. This anxiety compounded in the knowledge that I need to start making an income very soon. Chapter 5 has become extremely costly.
If this story continues similarly to the careful planning that was undertaken long before pen was put to paper, then I know that this chapter isn’t forever. It’s a means to an end. Every story must knit together to make any sense. Perhaps a lengthy chapter is often a middle bit that is necessary in creating the beginning, middle and the end. It is a summary of how the story began and the direction in which it will end. Therefore, my chapter 5 must be a vital component in the whole telling of the story.
But I’m becoming impatient.
My one rule break right now would be to create a story with one page chapters. At least to get to the exciting bits. I have so much to be grateful for and my blogs, had they acted as chapters of a book, kind of tell the story of my journey to my readers so far. But this chapter seems different. This is the part of the story that either makes or breaks the leading character.
Chapter 5 is a long road which has to be accepted as part of the journey (or story) for a complete ending to be written. Without chapter 5, we wouldn’t know the ending. So what’s the point in any journey (or story) if we can’t endure a chapter 5?
I have met many people on their own personal journeys who seem to call on me when they get to their very own chapter 5. They feel a bit stuck. Like, they know where they wanna be but can’t find a way out to the other side. And as I tell them, exactly as I tell myself, it is quite normal. Sometimes we all feel like a passenger when we want to be the one in control. Chapter 5, as long assed as it might be, leads only to a new chapter as long as we keep on reading. And we keep reading because we know the ending can be good. Not just good but life changing.
But being the main character feels different from the observer looking on. It’s like when we scream at the TV screen to the character being chased in a horror movie. We give them sensible, logical answers for the character to escape. But the character, in their emotional state, never thinks straight. Decisions solely based on emotion can sometimes lead to poor judgement. As Alfred Adler said, “Follow your heart, but take your brain with you.”
Now is a good time to remember that quote as I drudge through chapter 5.
If you feel like you’re stuck in chapter 5, ask yourself how you can develop your story for the next chapter. If you can create a positive narrative to it, the ending of your story could be a real page turner with a great ending. You’re the author. Chapter 5 doesn’t have to last forever.
You stand on the sideline watching your team defend their delicate one goal advantage as the onslaught of attack after attack comes at them. As the coach, there’s very little you can do now. You’ve set the team up, made the substitutions and given your encouragement from the dug out. They’re almost over the line, but you can’t rule out one last big chance falling to their number 9.
Ex Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson called it ‘squeaky bum time.’
I hate the expression, but I get it. Even though it’s just a football match he’s referring to.
My family and I are in injury time. We’ve done the prep and a lot of the hard work. But perhaps, as we wait for a completion date, money transfers and an upcoming consulate meeting, our nerves will be tested in these final moments even more than the past 12 months. It could, as each email and phone call passes by, be the strongest we’ve had to be thus far.
The email from the solicitor feels like another aerial challenge inside our six yard area. The number of the estate agents coming up on our phone is like a penalty appeal from the opposition crowd. We just need the final whistle.
With a chain of house sellers and buyers behind us, we can only hope that we hear the final whistle soon. We’re fully aware of what the implications of a house sale involving a chain can be, even deep into injury time.
My clients have all heard me say these words before…Trust the process.
Indeed, a good coach will have meticulously accounted for every eventuality with their client. I’ve programmed for the positive times, where the client is motivated and keen. But then I have to programme the not so easy moments where the client feels low and doesn’t hit targets.
There needs to be a plan A, B, C and beyond! But as long as you trust the process then the end result will be the right one.
Some of the greatest football managers of my time have trusted 100% in their project. Ferguson, Guardiola, Klopp rely on their ability and the team that they have built.
And so a trainee must also believe in themselves and their coach. Achieving great things doesn’t work otherwise.
Lou and I trust our process in completing the sale of our house and successfully obtaining the VISA for our move to Portugal. And beyond that, we are fully confident in our ability to put our business plans into action.
But it doesn’t mean that we are sitting comfortably. After all, nobody wants to go to extra time and penalties.
My gym journey, building a new business, being a good husband and father and moving to another country all need a consistent and considered approach.
Whatever the pitfalls each one delivers (and they do) if I live by the rule of consistency then I will eventually find a conclusion that works for me. It might not always be the best or most perfect outcome. I’m a realist. But it will, at least, enable me to move forward and continue my plans to reach that elusive ‘perfection’.
What helps me keep consistent is two main factors. The first is the question ‘Why?’
Why do I do what I do? Why bother with the gym every day? Why put the effort into my relationship with my wife and children? Why start up a new business? Why move to a different country?
The truth is that I would be immensely unhappy if I didn’t.
Some days I really don’t fancy going to the gym, but I enjoy the endorphins and the way it makes me look.
Some days my kids are driving me mad! But if I shout and lose my temper then I am teaching them that being kind and patient does not work.
And some days I really don’t want to deal with solicitors, VISA applications or business plans. But if I don’t do it then the move to Portugal can’t happen and therefore the new business can’t happen. I’ll be back in a commercial gym faster than you can say ‘500 quid a month rent’.
I don’t want the alternative, so I have to be consistent in how I get things done. Having a few days off is not on the table. And this leads me on to factor number 2.
These actions are non-negotiable. I cannot let the consistency slip. Now, I’m not talking about missing the gym for an emergency, bickering with my wife or watching Coranation Street instead of working on my business plan. I’m talking about serious procrastination that begins to turn itself into a lifestyle.
In a year’s time I don’t want to be overweight and miserable. I don’t want to be snappy with my kids and push my wife away. I don’t want to still be in the UK paying double on my mortgage and losing my freedom of movement just to rub salt in the wounds.
Consistently doing these activities gets me to where I want to be, so they are non-negotiable. I have to do them.
So I must address the one major problem I hear from people when they talk about changing their habits or lifestyle and working towards a goal. They tell me that they’re not motivated enough.
The problem with motivation is that it is a fleeting emotion. When it arrives it is fantastic. You’ll book the gym classes, write out a shopping list consisting of lots of fruit and veg, you’ll start to look at other job opportunities. Ones that will make you happy. You’ll call your friend or family member who you’ve been meaning to make contact with again. That’s what motivation can give you.
But what about when it isn’t there? If you haven’t answered your ‘why?’ and created a set of non-negotiables then you won’t get any closer to your happiness. You have to keep waiting for that glimmer of motivation that comes around now and again.
It is those cold, dark mornings when you get to the gym when you really don’t feel like it that edges you closer to a goal. It’s working through an online open university course on an evening when your friends have gone out for a few drinks that gets you out of your mundane work life rut. Motivation, on its own, won’t do that.
Take a moment to write down five things that you would like to achieve in the next 12 months. Next to each one, write the question ‘why?’ Honestly answer it. Dig deep and give your most honest answer, however hard it is to read it.
Then implement one thing that you will do to work towards each goal. It doesn’t have to be life changing, but whatever it is must become your consistent non-negotiable. You must do it when you say that you will.
From now until your 12 month goal you will sometimes find yourself without motivation, even demoralised. But keep your consistent approach.
Motivation is like a wind up toy. It’ll give you one big burst of energy or inspiration but eventually it stops. Consistency, albeit not a term that is as sexy or flashy, is the key to unlocking your future goals.
After an early morning start, Jonas and I have been sifting through his goals archive and have decided that this is his best goal of his career so far. Click the link and enjoy!
https://youtube.com/shorts/CS0GadJ9t84?feature=share
When I first started out as a PT I had absolutely no idea how I would execute my business. I wanted to be full time, that I was sure of. There are many PTs who go into PT as a side job to subsidise a full time income or as a hobby. But I wanted to jump straight in and give my clients my full attention. And from day one I encouraged my clients to call or message me at any time if they needed me. I never saw my one hour session a week as an ‘hourly rate’. It was more of a package. I was their PT 24/7, not just for that hour in the gym.
And I did get the odd midnight phone call and the messaging back and forth at unsociable hours, but that’s what I wanted. If that’s what my client needed at that time, then that’s what I wanted.
Your job doesn’t stop when you leave the gym. In fact, if you are developing training plans, replying back to messages and working on building your business, then the hard work starts after your sessions. I learnt that the hard way after a couple of years. Clients dropped off, I had no other income. I needed to become much more business savvy as a PT. I needed to be better at client retention. If times of the year were difficult to get new clients such as the summer, then I had to take good care of the ones that I had if I were to keep them.
If you go straight into a commercial gym after PT school, you’ll need to earn your credibility and stand out among the other PTs.
There were 14 other PTs at my first gym in Leeds. Although it was a busy gym it was difficult to get new clients because of this. I had to find a niche. Something that could make me stand out. What stood out was accidental to begin with, but then I made it a trademark…
To mask my nerves during my first few fitness classes, I became overly enthusiastic in my routines. I would bounce about, run around the studio, shout what would become familiar catchphrases and wouldn’t stop until the participants (and myself) were laid out on the floor in a pool of sweat. But I added comedy value too. I didn’t take myself seriously. I told crap jokes and had fun with it.
What started out as anxiety and adrenaline became a successful character in the gym. Most of my 1-1 clients started from doing fitness classes with me because they ‘wanted someone who would push them’ and ‘who had fun and energy’.
Don’t forget, I was trying to earn my stripes against PTs who were more experienced, were younger, were athletes, models and bodybuilders in their spare time. I was a 30 something year old, balding dad of two. I looked physically fit but I also looked ‘normal’. Along with acting like a deranged clown in my classes, I became appealing to a certain demographic.
I left a busy commercial gym near the centre of a major city in England to a much quieter gym just outside a seaside town. I knew early on that my style of fitness class wouldn’t catch on. The Deranged Clown would not fit in here. There was no way I could recreate the ‘theatre’ of my previous gym. And so I had to change direction. The jokes stayed, that’s just my personality , but I had to tone down the act.
Due to the closure of gyms during the pandemic, I will never truly know if my new direction worked. Gyms, PTs and how we approach fitness in general had to reinvent itself after lockdown. Not just me. But, although my enthusiasm for coaching has never waned, my enthusiasm for reinvention has. Perhaps lockdown was a final straw for me regarding commercial gyms.
And now my future still involves PT and coaching, but it will be very different again and it won’t be my only source of income. In fact I’ll have to wear many different caps if I am to pull off my next venture successfully.
My biggest piece of advice to a new PT trying to make it in a commercial gym would be to find your niche. If you enjoy calisthenics then talk about it to everyone who comes through the door. Or if training for marathons or tough mudder events is your thing, make sure that everyone knows that you’re the go to trainer for them. Be yourself. Yes, I am a deranged clown. I find it difficult to be serious and I find humour in most things. It wasn’t actually an act. Only yesterday I was on a field with 40 six year old kids teaching them how to Gangnam Style. I didn’t care what the other coaches or parents thought I was doing. The kids loved it!
And my other bit of advice is to realise that you won’t be able to stay in the comfort zone of a commercial gym forever. Not to make it a decent income long term anyway. Whether you set your own studio up, go online, coach children in schools or move to Portugal and set up a glamping site with an assault course, you will need to evolve eventually.
Yours faithfully,
The Deranged Clown.
‘Despite being nervous about moving up to play against the older kids, Jonas scored six goals in half an hour of his first game against the under 10s. You just don’t see anything like that.’
Jonas’ football coach gave him a fantastic send off during Scarborough Athletic’s grass roots presentation evening. It brought my wife to tears and I had a lump in my throat.
His impact at the club has been enormous. He broke records such as being the youngest ever player (he was signed to the under 7’s when he was 5) and his coach announced that he will be requesting that the number 6 jersey be retired in honour of the mark that Jonas has left.
The ‘football dad’ gets a bit of bad press. Pushy, yelling from the sideline and hoping that one day their kid will be earning millions playing in the Premier League.
And yet I don’t think I’ve been pushy. I’ve encouraged my kids to attend the extra curricular activities that they committed to but never demanded that they go if they didn’t want to. And for Jonas with football it’s been a bit like that. Despite his love for the game and his obvious talent, he has often made excuses not to go to training. But training twice a week and playing a game on Sundays since he was 5 must be quite tiring, even for the most willing of kids.
Scarborough Athletic are a very well run club. On day one the parents were told that it’s about their kids enjoying football and that the referees and coaches are volunteers. Yelling at them from the sidelines would not be tolerated. And although I’ve occasionally given encouragement and cheered a last minute winner, I’ve tried to keep quiet and not interfere with their game.
And I know the statistics when it comes to kids making it professional. I’ve seen some great talent in the hundreds of games that I’ve watched but I’ve probably not seen any kid that will become a full time professional. So I have to handle my kids’ dreams sensitively. Always dream big, yes, but success shouldn’t be defined by how much money you make, how big your car is or how many followers you have on Facebook.
Apart from a tournament that Jonas will hopefully be able to attend, that is it regarding his Scarborough Athletic journey. A club that has given him so many opportunities and valuable lessons in his short time of becoming a footballer. For that, we’ll be forever grateful.
I’ve changed a lot since becoming a father. Unrecognisable really. The younger, childless me was pretty care free. Sure, I had moments of angst and bouts of depression, but this was usually countered by alcohol or other recreational medication. Of course, this made things worse. Still, I held down a good job and had a couple of ‘serious’ relationships. My parents were, to the best of my knowledge , happy. I had friends. I had money, albeit spending it on the wrong things. Nothing too spectacular to see here.
I would describe myself as a pretty average 20 something living in Leeds (or at least, those that I knew!). I wasn’t a bad person. Think Joey or Chandler from Friends. I worked and had adult responsibilities, but I also liked to goof around playing Foosball (pool) with my mates rather than entering real life situations.
Meeting my future wife was a turning point, but, even then, I was crap with responsibility and being an adult.
And then I became a father. The ton of bricks hit me immediately. I took control. I knew that I couldn’t simply click my fingers and be the world’s best dad. I had to work on myself. The sign would say “Work In Progress”. It still does.
I now prepare for a future away from the next visit to the pool hall and a pint of Stella. I put commitments and plans in place way beyond what I do on a weekend as I used to navigate my time around the next Liverpool match or box set. My vision has become based upon my kids secondary school, their teenage years, further education, lifestyle, their careers and their opportunities and lives when I’m no longer around. Everything I do now is for them. Every gym visit, every job I undertake and every move in this game of chess called life is about what will benefit my children.
Seven years ago, with a baby just a few months old, my wife and I made a decision. The day after the UK had decided to leave the EU, we decided to leave the UK. I understand now, however difficult to get my head around it, that the majority of voters wanted Brexit. But we didn’t. I could see no solid evidence of happy endings from a country trying to recover from a recession leaving one of the largest economies in the world. And with the political landscape across the globe in such a panic in regards to war, terrorism and (later) pandemics, I felt that we needed to build friendships, allies and be united against those trying to harm our way of life. Now was not the time to create division.
Our decision to leave the UK wouldn’t have been so concrete if it hadn’t been for our children. We believe that our children will have better opportunities with the options to study, live and work with the freedom to move into 28 other countries. Once we make the move to Portugal (Visa pending now of course) our children will be EU citizens again and will be able to give them what we in the UK once had.
I sometimes wish that I had travelled and worked in different countries when I was younger. Learning new languages and meeting different people and cultures is a great way to discover the world we live in.
I want my kids to take away the blinkers and discover their world for themselves. To see and experience new things. I guess this is why we moved to Scarborough on the east coast of England before really putting our European plan into action. I loved Scarborough growing up as a kid. My kids love Scarborough now. We all do. But we also know that there are more adventures to be had elsewhere.
The more experiences that we can provide for our children, the easier their transition into adulthood can be. Soon, they’ll be sitting in a classroom having to understand Portuguese. That will be daunting for them, I know. But if they can overcome that, then not only will they acquire very good skills in the Portuguese language, but they will have less fear when it comes to their first day at Uni or traveling to a different country for a job opportunity. It will take them out of their comfort zone and into a world of opportunities.
Yes, I’ve changed a lot since becoming a father. I realized that I had to leave MY comfort zone. I had to start making decisions that were right for this tiny human being I held in my hands. And wherever it takes us, it is done with their wellbeing in mind.
Never Give Up PT