How to learn to love your work, and love your life

Chris Baréz-Brown’s son Harvey told him that whenever he thinks something bad, he imagines the bad thought to be a bubble floating in the air and pops it with his finger.

The text on page 62 of FREE! stops at this point. Next on the page is a picture of a big green bubble floating. Then Baréz-Brown, the man who helped turn Carling Black Label into the first British billion-pound brand, resumes his writing. “Works for him, works for me.”

Everyone can benefit from thinking about Baréz-Brown’s material. You can learn to love your work, and love your life

This is hippie stuff! Yet, in less than an hour, I have made it to page 62. Baréz-Brown sets out to show you how to love your work and love your life – and his ideas are persuasive.

“If you wake up every morning in keen anticipation of your working day, you might want to put this book back on your shelf until you need it,” Baréz-Brown advises on page 18. 

His book is for people who are not having fun, for those who have become something they never intended to be or for people who say that nothing new ever happens at work.

Will those people read it? I don’t know. But everyone can benefit from thinking about Baréz-Brown’s material. 

The core of the book tackles four themes:

 True Essence is about working out what is important in your life.

 Stepping Up is about organising what you do.

 Spacesuit is about keeping healthy.

 Loving Your Caveman is about recognising how your inherent behaviour can trick you into making poor decisions.

The book is peppered with quotes, picture pages and space to jot down notes. In between there’s great stuff such as:

“One simple trick to help you re-engage with the world around you is to carry a small notebook. Write down three things a day that you found surprising or just plain attractive. 

“Things that made you go ‘Ooooooo’ and made you feel alive. By doing this you will programme your brain to spot things more readily and become more sensitised to the world around you.

“Every time that you’ve done something that you want to learn from ask two simple questions:

1. What did I do brilliantly?

2. What can I do even better?

“If you ask these questions every day, you start to learn about the impact that you’re having. You see where you
are a star and where you could be even shinier with a little buff. By doing so you place yourself firmly in control of your destiny.”

There is also stuff like: “Much better to get the moose on the table and have the grown-up chat.” Sit back, breathe in, smile and move on.

Baréz-Brown agrees that money is important but says this is not how you should measure your success. 

He quotes US author Richard Bandler, who said: “If you can’t enjoy one dollar, what’s the chance of you enjoying a million dollars?

“Happiness is a feeling that is generated by a relationship with ourselves, those around us and the world in which we live. That relationship is rarely enhanced by having more money.”

Read FREE! and learn how to put your problems in a bubble, pop them and move on – and be in better control of your own destiny.