The person who has most influenced me this past year:

As the year draws to a close I was reflecting on the person who has had the most positive influence over me in the past year. One person stood out quite clearly and it wasn’t through any knowingly focused act of will on their part, but rather through a number of serendipitous events that they orchestrated.

The first was getting me back ‘out’ into the work force rather than working solely from home.  There I was sitting quietly in my Chiropractors waiting room, minding my own business, when her assistant announced that she would be leaving for a new job in marketing.  Said Chiropractor turned to me and said:

‘Oh Dorit, you could come and help me couldn’t you?’

Wait, what?!

‘Oh, sure!’  I said ‘I’ll help you out’ not wanting to leave anyone in the lurch.

(You’ve worked out by now for those who know her that I’m talking about Debra Lawson - that petite little firecracker of enthusiasm) 

Debra with the original 'Love Boat' captain Terry Russell at one of our social outings to the Cairns Food & Wine Society

 The first day I drove “to work” – all of two minutes down the road – I remember feeling quite panic struck. What if I couldn’t remember what to do? What if I stuffed up the appointments? What if I couldn’t work the eftpos machine? And worst of all, what if I couldn’t remember how to operate and clean the poo machine? (My Chiropractor offers colonic therapy with a very hygienic and safe modern system for people who are full of shit ;-)

As the level of anxiety increased I did a quick reality check: ‘Get a grip of yourself!’ I told my inner self, ‘You’ve got two bloody degrees for god’s sake! How hard can it be? Honestly, it’s not rocket science!’

First day back in the 'work force'

 I eventually got the hang of it in my ‘Dorit’ fashion and because I was working there it wasn’t too long before we convinced R to move his rooms there so I could assist him. This is called truly cementing your relationship in a river of love by spending every spare moment together except that sometimes I forget that cementing is a verb and make it into a noun, put R in it and toss him in that river!

The second major influence Deb had occurred about two months ago when she asked:

‘Hey Dorit, why don’t ya come keep me company at this Facebook Bootcamp?’  (Yes she’s a Yank so she speaks funny)

Facebook has a Bootcamp? I didn’t realise social networking was so hard-core – well that escalated quickly!

‘Sure, why not?’ I replied whilst trying to visualise what a Facebook Bootcamp could possibly be – Die-hard Facebook Nazis doing push-ups whilst singing in army marching cadence:

‘Facebook, Facebook, millions strong’  

‘They just can’t all be wrong’   

‘Post all day and night time too’  

 ‘Status update in the loo.’ ???

As it turned out it was the world’s FIRST Facebook Bootcamp for small business and oddly enough they’d picked the remote tropical town of Cairns to run it in, presumably to see how it went and iron out any awkward moments. You know these Yanks; they like to test things in remote tropical places first so we were kind of like Facebook’s Bikini Island.

At the Facebook Bootcamp with Nick Bowditch

 Well, once the nuclear explosion – the human dynamo convening the Bootcamp Nick Bowditch – had settled we came out of there with renovated Facebook pages and a good thing too because the Antiageingdoctor page had been sitting dormant for three years! I’m pleased to report it’s now alive and well delivering sometimes controversial health tips, recipes and observations on a regular basis.

As a result of being all fired up and getting the Facebook page going I thought I’d better tackle that other monster – namely our website Antiageingdoctor.com – which was in an even worse stage of latent  dormancy. Said website had been languishing on the backburner with all the most basic work done in terms of design and layout but no content for the past FIVE years! Within a week I had the pages ready for editing by R and initiated a blog as the landing page that would tick over to something new every week or two so repeat visitors wouldn’t get bored with a static ‘brochure’ of a website. I emailed our web master that hadn’t heard from us in centuries and told her I thought I had all the content together and emailed it through.  A few hours later she flicked me an email which read ‘I’d given up on you guys so when I heard from you I thought I’d better drop every other job I’m working on and do it straight away in case you disappeared again -It’s live!’    Holy crap that was rather sudden then! I went online and sure enough we were live but I was in Cairns and R was on the other side of the country. I sent him a text:

 Me: ‘Website is live.’   

R: ‘What website?’ 

Me: ‘Antiageingdoctor.com’

R: ‘Well that escalated quickly!’

Me: ‘After 5 years, yeah! Congratulations now I ‘m forced to drink champagne by myself to celebrate because you’re not here’

Luckily my trusty inspiration rang and invited me out to a friend’s dinner party and supplied vast quantities of Moёt. 

The Moet night with our crazy friend John Hawash (arm around me) and me towering over tiny Deb like some Amazon woman

 The fourth positive and serendipitous influence Ms Positive Inspiration had this year happened like this:-

R rings: ‘What did you do today?’

Me: ‘Slaved over my red hot laptop all day’

R: ‘What, no movies with Sam or coffee with Pam?’ (BTW I know it sounds like it but my friends don’t all come from a Dr Seuss book ;-p)

Me: ‘They were busy’ (So now note the typical male logic)

R: ‘Well you need to get some more friends!’

As you can see I'm slaving over my red (literally!) hot laptop

 The very next day Ms Positive Inspiration says come over for a girls lunch there’s some people you’d like to meet. Next time R flys back to Cairns he wonders why I’m not there for him 24/7 –

R: ‘Well now where are you going?’

Me: ‘Oh I’m off to a girl’s lunch at Helens’

Next Day R: ‘Shall we go –‘

Me: ‘Sorry I’ve got an event to go to but I can fit you in between 5-7pm then I’ve got a teleconference’

He’s standing there with a bewildered little boy lost look on his face and says:

‘I think you’ve got too many friends.’ Hmmm.

Lunch with the girls

 As a result of meeting Deb’s friends I found myself suddenly convened into the E-Publishing Club that Helen Bairstow, author and publisher, has just launched where 5 of us are supporting each other in working toward getting our first non-fiction books written. Mine is called ‘Office Zombies:  Is Your Work Environment Killing You and Your Future?’Or it may have a completely different title  - I just can't decide!  It analyses every aspect of the office environment and how it affects our health, work performance and business but in a fun and easy to understand way with checklists and action plans to health and business success. I'm fortunate to have some top experts from around the world  contributing to various chapters.

So to my whacky little American friend Deb thanks for being such an inspiration in 2012 – I’m sorry that when the World Ends  I’ll be on the other side of the country at the Manjimup Hospital End Of The World morning tea party on 21/12/21, but I’ll be sipping green tea and thinking of you! Here's to a great and awesome 2013!