The Eyes Have It

In the TV show Friends, massage therapist Phoebe is accused of flirting with one of her clients because she got a pedicure, new toenail polish and a toe ring. Obviously – as a massage client, looking down through the hole in the table, Phoebe’s feet are the only part of her he can see.

My husband would be relieved to know that my masseur yesterday was definitely not foot-flirting with me! As I peered down through the hole in the table all I saw were some scuffed shoes and a very plain boring floor. As someone who has the attention span of a goldfish I must admit I was a little bored (not by the massage – just the view).

As I sat there peering at beige linoleum I was reminded of my firm belief that as many people as possible within a business should experience the business from the client’s perspective.

If the masseur had been in my place, perhaps next time I went back there might be a bowl of water with lilies or even goldfish as a friend of mine once experience while getting a massage in Vietnam.

If all dentists sat in their own chairs once in a while (and felt the terror that many of us do), perhaps they may all have the very groovy television on the ceiling I’ve heard one Sydney dentist has where you can watch a TV show or movie and pick up from that point next time you come in.

Where do your clients eyes go? If you run a gym, what is there for your clients eyes to go to while they’re on the spin bike or on a treadmill. My gym has little motivational quotes on the equipment. What about when you’re flat on your back doing a chest press – your client’s eyes are on the ceiling – what’s there for them?

My eye’s always go to the bathroom with me (shock horror) when I’m in a restaurant. If you work in one, head on in there and look around with your client’s eyes on (metaphorically of course!).

If you’re in retail, perhaps it’s your dressing rooms you need to study (see Interaction Enhancement for more ideas on client service and being a dressing room superstar). In real estate the eyes may be focussed on your car (what is that smell?) or the insides of your client’s cupboards (the buyer’s eyes will almost definitely go there).

Take a moment and be your client for 10 minutes today and change what doesn’t delight the eyes.

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Life: If you're bored, you're doing it wrong

Found at: http://www.growinghappiness.com/ - I love this - Kirsty!

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The A-Z Guide For The Future Entrepreneurial Superstar

Want to be an entrepreneur? So do a lot of people! And a lot of people go to their grave saying “I wish I’d…” and “If only I’d…”. If you’re determined not to be one of them, run through the A-Z and see if you’re on track.

Action – nothing starts without it. What are you doing today, right now (not tomorrow) to get you closer to your goals?

Bare yourself… (to yourself). Ask what it is you really want, what are you passionate about and what are you prepared to do to get there. More importantly, what are you not prepared to do to get there.

Care – Any entrepreneurial endeavour that has clients who care about the company has one leg up. Who are your raving fans? Who cares about what you do? What can you do to further cultivate that?

Dare – Risk doesn’t necessarily have to mean risky, but any entrepreneur dares where others don’t. Are you ready to be daring?

Eat up knowledge – anywhere you can and do it daily.

Friends – know who your real ones are and keep them close to you as you rise to the top.

Get up and go. No-one can train this into you. If you get up in the morning and want to go back to bed rather than off to pursue your entrepreneurial visions – get new visions that inspire you to get up and going.

Hug it out. Thank often and sincerely. Clients, staff, mentors, friends, parents and even your garbage person if they’ve helped you.

Individuality – what makes you special, unique and individual? How can you harness your special talents

Joke – keep laughing and smiling, you’ll need it for those less than perfect days.

Kill them with kindness. There is only one type of revenge you should ever enact on people who’ve slighted you in the business world, or said you couldn’t make it. Become amazingly successful! Nothing else you can do would make their stomachs turn even half as much.

Leverage – get the most talented people you can around you (people who are a heck of a lot smarter than you in their field). If you want to be all and do all yourself you’ll never have a saleable scaleable business.

Motion. Stay active in your mind and in your body. You’re no good to anyone if you’re not fit and healthy.

No. Learn how to say it. You can’t get to the top being everything to everyone.

Off switch. Find yours. Whether it’s yoga, gazing into your partner’s eyes or a marathon xbox-ing session, learn how to turn it off when you need to.

Passion! Even if your business is cleaning toilets, find something you can be passionate about within it. Whether it’s the systems, the service, the clients or even the relaxing sound of toilets flushing!

Questions – ask heaps! Find people who have done what you want to do, who drive the car you want to drive, whose staff think of them the way you want to be thought of and ask them questions.

Rough, tough and ready for critics. Got your tough outer shell on? The ride won’t always be easy and the comments about you won’t always be pretty.

Systems. Put them in place early and assess often. If your business can’t work without you – it’s not a business, it’s just a job for you.

Toxic people – get them out of your life! If you work with them, are friends with them or even have them in your family – stop hanging around them all the time. Strive for associations with positive, fabulous people who make you a better person.

Ubercool. Can you and your business be übercool? Are you setting in place the things that will make people one day say “I want my business to be just like ”

Voice. Find yours and make it heard. Publicity, press releases, media schmoozing – it’s all out there for free if you can make your voice heard.

Want a lot of stuff (success, things, travel, lifestyle, to be able to be philanthropic). Want it badly. And then get out there and get it.

X-ray like vision – use yours to stay on top of the latest trends, movements and shifts in your industry and in others. Challenge the status quo at every opportunity!

You are the CEO of your own life. What are you going to do with it?

Zorbing – do it or something you think is as much fun (skydiving, ride a roller coaster, travel to the pyramids, join the mile high club) as often as you can – why do you want to be an entrepreneur if not to do amazing things with your personal life as well.

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The power in a tiny splash of colour…

The year is 1992 and with all my teenage creativity I’m trying to figure out how I can convincingly transform one pair of generic blue jeans and one small piece of red packing tape into what I most desire: a pair of Levi red tab jeans.

I didn’t care that the jeans my Mum had lovingly picked out for me were durable, I didn’t care about the fit, I didn’t care about the cost. All I cared about was that red tab.


These days I covet a different splash of red. That which you glimpse underneath a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes.


And then of course there’s arguably the most famous splash of colour of all. The small delicate perfect blue box. Everyone instantly knows where it’s from and what it stands for.


I doubt any of these companies added their splash of colour thinking it was going to be the single thing that revolutionised them as a brand.

The splash of colour doesn’t make the brand. The jeans are no better or worse with or without the red tab and the blue box doesn’t affect the jewellery inside. It’s all about what that splash of colour reminds us of. Whether it says quality, style, value, exclusivity or something else, the tiny splash of colour speaks to us.

When someone sees your splash of colour be it on your logo, your corporate branding, your uniform, your office walls, your signage, your business card – what does it signify to them? What does it remind them to remember about your company, your business, your brand?

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Kirsty Will Be Speaking At The Arise Summit In Launceston on 10th May 2008

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Book Review - Unleashing The Ideavirus by Seth Godin

Infect Me With The Virus!

Starting my own dot com (reallysold.com) for the first time (as opposed to running traditional bricks and mortar businesses as I’d done in the past) I knew I had to read as much of Seth’s work as I possibly could. Unleashing the Idea Virus was right at the top of my list. Seth yet again spells out simple easy to understand ideas illustrated with fabulous examples. Yes – the book is a little out of date now with its references - but it’s also pretty fun seeing which of Seth’s predictions have come true! I’d recommend the read for any business owner or marketer looking for the answers to the question “how can I get people talking about my business without laying out a mint on traditional interruption advertising”

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17 Reasons Why You Should Always Carry A Book With You

1. As someone who used to spend a lot of time waiting for real estate clients to show up – I know that clients / appointments / people in general are often late. If you’ve got a book with you, the time can be wisely used.
2. Books can be heavy and if necessary, a large book can be used as a weapon of self protection.
flickr photo credit
3. Doctor’s can’t tell time. OK – so I‘m sure they can, but they’re not usually too fussed with sticking to it when you have an appointment. While away those hours reading a good book.
4. Waiting room magazines are usually from at least 5 years ago do you really want to see pictures from Fergie’s wedding (the Duchess of York variety, not the Black eyed Peas’ Fergie) again? Read a book instead. And also - do you really want to be fondling something so many sick people have held and spluttered over?
5. Books can save your life. Baghdad, Iraq - A US soldier serving in iraq believes his Bible saved his life after it stopped a sniper's bullet. 22-year-old Army Private First Class Brendan Schweigart had his Bible tucked in a pocket beneath his bullet proof shield when he was shot with a high powered rifle while on a mission in Iraq. The bullet missed his vital organs, came out his chest, and lodged in his Bible before it could do more damage.
6. Having a book on public transport makes you less of a target for the chatty grandma type or that guy who just can’t seem to observe personal space
7. Kids play sport, sometimes not well, read a book instead. Also consider using a calming book as the antidote to being one of those crazy sidelines parents!
8. We all have an unreliable friend. Rather than roster him or her off the social calendar. Tell them your lunch date is 1.30 (when it’s really 1.45) and take a book just in case.
9. Books are ideal when you’re stuck in the car with boring company. Discard this tip if like me, the motion makes you a little queasy (books + vomit = a little hard to read).
10. Your computer crashes, read 5 pages, there’s power outage, read 15 more.
11. Handbags are so big now anyway – you may as well have a book (or an entire library in there). Guys, get a satchel or a man-bag, I think they’re hot.
12. I remember when a trip to the hairdresser took half an hour, these days with the shampoo, head massage, colour, foils, trim, layering, complimentary choccies and beer, blow dry, straighten I’m out for half a day. Read a book instead of listening to the gossip.
13. Speaker Pat Mesiti’s (www.mesiti.com) on board. He offers $1,000 to anyone who catches him without a book in his bag. Apparently his teenage daughter asks each day.
14. Books make you look intellectual (glasses, a pencil in your hair and a good solid pocket protector also add to the geek-chic).
15. I love a good airline magazine, but they tell people to take them home, people take them home and then I rarely get to read one! Take a book as a back up.
16. If you don't know what the person you're mean to meet looks like (this happens to me way too often) arrive 20 minutes early, read your book and then it’s up to them to find you.
17. And finally – if even Paris can do it, surely you can too!

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Book Review - No Mountain High Enough by Linda Armstrong Kelly

Frank, Funny and Charming
Reading Linda’s story I instantly knew I’d want to lend this book to my Mum after I’d finished it. Are high achievers born or made? You won’t find the answer in reading this book, but you’ll see how a determined young woman who had every reason to fail succeeded and raised a champion. More importantly I feel – this story isn’t just about Lance. It’s definitely hers, it’s quirky and charming, easy to read and definitely gives you a feel for her character. I preferred It’s Not About The Bike – but I definitely recommend this as a great follow up read.

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Thanks Indiana

Watching Indiana Jones (of all things) last night with my husband I was reminded of one of the more memorable places I’ve ever been.

I was 21 years old and on my first trip overseas. A Contiki tour through Europe – comprising something ridiculous like 13 countries in 5 weeks. Many would say, not enough time to enjoy any of it and I might agree but for the fact that at 21, I had no idea what in Europe I wanted to see.

Sure I had vague images of the Colosseum and the Eiffel tower but aside from these bastions of what Europe was in my just post teenage mind – I was stumped as to what I actually wanted to see. So I just went with the flow. Loving almost everything I was, albeit briefly, exposed to.

Of all that I most adored on this trip: cobbled streets in Florence, friendly bocce players in Barcelona, the hushed silence in Notre Dame, one place chilled me but also stuck with me in a really memorable way.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade reminded me of it last night in a scene where an Austrian woman (a bad-guy mind you) holds back a tear at a Nazi book burning site in Berlin.

When I visited Bebelplatz, Berlin at first I didn’t understand what the empty shelves illuminated underground meant.


I didn’t realise I was standing up on the site where Nazis burnt over 20,000 books in 1933. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz)

The monument is elegant and simple and is something I’ll never forget. Nearby to it there is a plaque which quotes Heinrich Heine, a German poet: "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn."

Thanks Indiana Jones for triggering a memory so powerful. Thanks to the tour guide who adequately explained Bebelplatz to me. Thanks to a world where, thanks to the internet, expansive libraries and blogs like this – we are all free to read, grow and learn.

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Need Some Inspiration? A Brain Jolt? Just A Good Laugh?

To follow are some of the sites and emails I run my eye over when I need a new perspective, a new idea or a business related giggle:

www.idea-a-day.com – this daily newsletter always manages to give me a smile when I read my back editions. From the inane to the insane… This one on Pringles is a champ I think!

Manufacture Pringles containers with a spiral perforation around the outside, allowing the tube to be shortened as the snack is consumed. This innovation might help eradicate 'hand stuck in a Pringles tube syndrome' once and for all.

www.sethgodin.com – Seth Godin is one of my favourite business “thinkers”

From Seth… What will be on your tombstone
So, every single article about podcasting mentions Adam Curry (which makes sense, since it was his idea). And every article ever written about Adam Curry mentions that he was once an MTV VJ. For no good reason. (We're talking almost 100,000 google matches). AND, every single article about Google (until recently) included the phrase, "And employees eat lunch in a cafeteria where the food is prepared by a former chef for the Grateful Dead." For no good reason. (We're talking 25,600 matches). What's they have in common is pretty obvious: oxymorons. It's a safe piece of trivia that no one expects but then it's pretty easy to remember. Oxymorons make it easy to tell stories. Do you have one?

www.springwise.com – if it’s new and funky, it’s happening here from in-store wave riding to a pocket sized printer.

www.thatnametagguy.com – he’s zany, he wears a name tag 24 hours a day and he blogs some of my favourite “lists”.

For more of my recommendations head to: www.kirstydunphey.com/recommendations.html

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Book Review - A Lotus Grows In The Mud by Goldie Hawn

Caught Me Totally By Surprise

I guess I’d always sort of looked down my nose a bit at Goldie Hawn. From what I could remember from my childhood in the 80’s – wasn’t she always playing the ditzy blonde? So why did I even grab a copy of this book – who knows (I usually only read business books!). I’m so glad I did though. This goofy and effervescent woman charmed me from within every page. I read it over a few days and was sad to put it down each time. Enlightening, funny, warm and enough to really change my mind.

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Is 2008 Going To Be A Year Of Growth For You?

I’ll make this short and sweet. If you want 2008 to be a year of growth for your business, here are 2 things you can do to help you achieve that. In actual work time they could take as little as ten minutes, in thinking time – perhaps a little longer.

1. Draw up a growth matrix.


Plug everything you do in a work week into one of these four boxes.

If you love doing it and it is helping you grow your business plug it in the top left hand quadrant. Note here that something that makes money in your business may NOT necessarily be helping you grow your business. The business owner who still sees all their own clients isn’t growing their business, they’re growing their job. Growth comes from leverage and you can’t leverage one on one time with yourself.

If it helps you grow your business but you don’t love doing it – it goes in the bottom left hand box. Love it but it’s not about growth, right hand top. Don’t love it and it’s not about getting growth, bottom right hand side.

I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to go back over a week’s dairy / schedule and just start plugging things in. Mark my words: your first instinct for where something should go may not always be right. Keep asking yourself is this really helping to GROW my business.

Once you’ve got your matrix sorted, this is what I recommend you do with each area:

2. Read this post by Scott Ginsberg

http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/12/34-questions-to-keep-yourself-growth.html

Short, sweet and done. Now I’m off to grow my business!

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Book Review - Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed by Dale Beaumont

In my opinion this is far and away one of Dale’s best Secrets Exposed books. The contributors experience and content varies widely as do their suggestions and tips for new players. Whether you’re in business online now or you’re considering it in the future, if you can’t get value from this read, you’re not trying.

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3 Things Vegas Reminded Me About Business

I recently had the pleasure of being invited to speak in none other than Vegas (baby – sorry – can’t help myself with that!) While there good old Vegas reminded me of a few things about business that had almost slipped my mind.

1. Nothing lasts forever



Since the last time we’d been to Vegas the classic Stardust hotel and casino (home of the eternal Wayne Newton for so many years) was gone, as was the old Aladdin, and the new Aladdin (transforming into Planet Hollywood).

This time while in Vegas at 2.30am in the morning (after a quick powernap) we got to watch what was truly an awesome site. Another Vegas icon – the Frontier got imploded to the ground to make way for yet another “bigger / better” in Vegas.

The Frontier was originally opened October 30, 1942 and was only the second to open on the strip. It also housed Elvis’ first show on the Strip in ’52 and now it is no longer.

In Vegas you can do the Eiffel tower (half size), the New York skyline and the canals of Venice in a day, but don’t expect them to be here forever.

In the same way, we can expect to constantly see changes on the business landscape. Say the word Google or Yahoo in the 80’s and you would have received a polite “pardon me?”.

2. You’ve got to know when to hold em



Kenny never spoke truer words than “You’ve got know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run”. And despite the fact that the song is called “The Gambler” it could have just as easily been called “The Entrepreneur”.

Steve Jobs knew to hold on to Pixar when it was going through troubling times. Bill Gates knew when to fold first company Traf-O-Data. Tyra Banks knew when to walk away from her music career (and back into the arms of her loving television audiences). Warren Buffet knew to run in the opposite direction of tech stocks missing out entirely on the tech crash.

3. If you build it, (and have faith in it) they will come



Celine and Caesars Palace “built it”, it being a $95 million purpose build Colosseum and didn’t let poor early reviews stop her mammoth 5 year stay. Over 3 million fans have seen the show with revenues in excess of $400 million.

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Powerfully Potent

Ever said a word so often that it just becomes a mash of sounds and almost loses any resemblance to its meaning? I’ve been doing that today with the word “powerful”

The reason it’s crept into my head was after reading an article about David Geffen, referred to at a time as “the most powerful person in Hollywood”.

Powerful… pau-er-fel… the word was still repeating in my head when I went to a personal training session this morning.

My fabulous personal trainer Brett (www.jumpfitandpt.com.au) somehow tuned into my mood and started telling me about the difference between strength and power when it came to his line of work.

Strength, he said, could be represented by him walking outside and slowly but surely lifting a car above his head. On the other hand power, he mused, is a combination of not just strength but also of speed. So instead of slowly lifting the car, power would be shown by propelling the large object with both speed and strength.

Too often when I personally think of power or of someone being powerful I think of just in terms of strength (of will, of action, of thought, of achievement) but Brett’s conversation with me got me thinking about the key element of speed in the actions of some of the most powerful people out there in business today.

• Steve Jobs showed strength in coming back to Apple and showed speed in new product implementation with key design features (imacs, ipods, iphones).
• Martha Stewart showed strength in making her comeback from jail and speed to the market with new concepts immediately after her release.
• Larry & Sergey of Google didn’t build the first search engine (don’t mistake speed for needing to be first) but they are the strongest player in the market and are constantly speedy at improving and increasing their range of services (check out Google… analytics, earth, alerts, knoll, maps, scholar as examples). I know I don’t go more than 2 hours of any day at my desk without using a Google product. If they’d just stuck with their search engine this wouldn’t be the case.

All too often these days people shun the word “power” not wanting to be thought of as “power hungry” or having “let the power gone to their heads”!

For me however, I want power.

I want the power to:
• Do work I love
• Look after my family
• Live the life I want to
• Achieve my goals
• Do all of the above without harming others

Power shouldn’t have the negative connotations it’s been stigmatised with lately if we all remember the true meaning (not the over-hyped one). In fact one of my favourite dictionary definitions of powerful simply says that power is ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something. Now we all want that don’t we?

The 25 most powerful people in business:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0711/gallery.power_25.fortune/

The 100 most powerful people in sport 2007: http://www.businessweek.com/table/07/0926_power100.html

Hollywood’s most influential infants
http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/13/hollywood-media-pitt-biz-media-cx_lr_1213celebbabies.html

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Megaphone or Muffler?

After getting back from an amazing trip to South East Asia I took some artwork from Cambodia and Vietnam in to be framed at a local store.

I had been recommended to this particular store by not one but two of my friends and after seeing the work they performed I know why, it was total quality and very impressive.

What surprised me though was that as I was discussing my order with them – I mentioned these two friends who had so glowingly referred me to this business. The reply I got basically amounted to “that’s nice”.

Now what they could have done in this instance was ask me one simple question that I believe would have a lasting positive impact on their business and their bottom line. They could have asked me just who it was who had referred them.

They could have sent them a thank you card or called and thanked them personally or sent them a discount voucher for their next framing. Something… (anything) to let them know that they appreciated the referral.

When someone refers a friend to your business - that’s advertising dollars you haven’t had to spend, because you’ve just got yourself a walking talking billboard going around advertising your business! What you do to thank them for doing your marketing for you can act as a megaphone or a muffler – which would you prefer?

I got turned into a megaphone when a local airline newspaper published a list of my favourite restaurants in Launceston. The savvy owner of one – Sara from the divine Novaros - sent me a gorgeous bunch of orange roses to thank me for mentioning them (and I haven’t stopped mentioning them since!)

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The Secret in Action

Heard of “The Secret” (www.thesecret.tv)? If not, you may be the only one out there as it appeared to be EVERYWHERE in 2007.

I like to keep on top of what’s causing fuss in the world, so of course, I watched the DVD. Some of it I really enjoyed (especially seeing such high quality speakers like Dr. Denis Waitley), some of it I thought a little out there, but on the whole I took away some valuable points.

The fundamental message I got from The Secret was about harnessing the power of the law of attraction, ie: what you think about the most will come to you. That way the person who thinks all the time “lose weight” really just reinforces “weight” “weight” “weight”, the same with the person who really doesn’t want to get fired, or get a parking ticket.

On the positive side however thinking about what you most want in a positive way (getting a fab promotion, launching a successful business where money pours in your doors, being your ideal body size) and consistently focussing on it means that you can attract those things into your life (according to the Law of Attraction).

I’m a bit of sceptic, so just after I watched the DVD I thought I’d give it a test and set myself a target for book sales in the next month far in excess of what I’d ever sold before. On the final day of the month I tallied all my sales up and saw that I was around $127 short of my goal. I smiled, over the moon with my record sales, and went about my daily activities heading into the post office that afternoon. There in the post office were two cheques (a rarity for us as most of our sales are online) for book purchases amounting to just under $130.

Do I live my entire life worshiping the power of the Law of Attraction? Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it does give me reason to smile every now and then.

Just last Thursday I flew into Sydney, my plane was delayed and I was a little confused about where I was going. As I was standing in the taxi line thinking to myself – how do I get to Manly – I wish I had someone to ride with. A couple walked the line asking “Is anyone going to Manly?”. They took me right to my hotel door!

The next morning I jokingly mentioned my shoe size at a speaking job, later that day Sue from www.swissmasai.com told me she was sending me a gift pair of shoes!

Later that day after I’d filmed a TV spot for Sky Business I was standing at the TV station again thinking where on earth am I heading – and who do I end up sharing a taxi with? A dynamic young PR rep for Random House (one of Australia’s leading book publishers). View the Sky Business interview below.



And as I got back on my plane to come home to Tassie I remembered the days when all I wished for was to spend my lives on planes and in hotels! Perhaps I should have been a bit more specific! Be careful what you wish for (you may just attract it!)

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This takes the (cup)cake!

I had the pleasure of staying in Melbourne this weekend, celebrating my birthday, heading to the Grand Prix and the Zoo, as well as catching up on a few business meetings. It was flat out – as you can imagine (ie: not even enough time to buy new shoes!)

I stayed at a newly rebranded hotel – Quest East Melbourne, www.questeastmelbourne.com.au and to say I was surprised was an understatement! I’m used to Quest serviced apartments being done in a very traditional corporate (think lots of beige) style. This place was FUNky (with a capital FUN): boutique style rooms, all mod cons, amazing tiling (what I like tiles!) and was as groovy as many of the so called boutique hotels I’ve stayed at in Melbourne.

And upon arrival I had my own little cupcake waiting in the room along with a personalised note. For around $3.50 (the going rate of a cute cupcake) and a little time and energy (exactly what I talk about in Interaction Enhancement) – I’m even more likely to go back to stay here and to recommend Quest East Melbourne to others – hence this blog. And while I can’t guarantee you’ll receive a cupcake – I can say that you’ll find a very lush place to stay with amazing friendly staff

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Kirsty's new free book - Peacock Feathers

Grab your copy of Kirsty's new book here: www.kirstydunphey.com/downloadme.html

Print it, email it to friends, share as much as you like!

Happy reading

By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments

Birthday Time – How old are you?

As I write this it’s the day before my 29th birthday. 29 – you know one year before… gulp… one year before “old”. Or at least that’s what I thought at age 15 when I swore I’d never be old. Never be th.. th… thirty.

I also swore I’d never wear socks and sandals, complain about my aching back and also – even for a brief period of time that I’d never get married. Seems, despite my insistences to the contrary that I didn’t know much about what the future would hold for me the tender age of 15!

As much as I pretend though, I’m excited to be heading into my 30th year of life. I learnt a bloody lot in my 20’s, I also messed up a lot, made amazing friends, met the love of my life and amassed a pretty good collection of fancy shoes. If I can keep growing like that through my 30’s and onwards – it’s exciting.

That and I have some pretty amazing role models around me showing me that you’re only as old as you feel.

Seems the 70 + year olds I know have as much energy, vitality and verve for life as I ever managed in my 20’s.

In their 70’s and loving it there was my host family in Texas: Bonnie and Ben who outdanced me until the wee hours.

My new girlfriend Geri who still feels to me like a naughty teenager (I don’t really believe her when she says she’s in her 70’s) gossiping with me and gabbing about how we’re going to run off to Vegas and take over the world.

And then of course my father in law who in his early 70’s still plays competitive squash and is a fire cracker.

I say if Frank Lloyd Wright could still design homes until the year he died (he was 92) imagine what my 30’s and what your next decade hold for you.

Stay fabulous (at any age)

Kirsty

By Kirsty Dunphey with 1 comment