role model

Example is Leadership #3 Iris Apfel

~ Fridgesays ~ 26 Comments

Before I begin my swoon on this American delight – you would be correct in thinking I have a soft spot for the elderly. In light of this series, please *click the link to find out whats its all about, I do believe we can learn so much for listening to our elders. Perhaps that make me sounds old fashioned, but its more basic maths…longer life equals more experience to share.

For many you have to dig deep and stay patient but for Iris Apfel a quick look on google images will begin to give you a picture of why she makes me smile.

Her love for colour and her vitality towards life means that this legend born in 1921 can almost be summed up by looking at her. She is truly living, knows what she likes and if you watch an interview or two with her you can see that she has some serious opinions and could’t give a banana skin about what anyone may think of her. Personally, as someone who was never the best at taking criticism as a child, this ‘cake and eat it’ beauty is my kind of lady. She always looks so elegant and therefore its no surprises that she has taken part in several design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents.

As a role model I love that she doesn’t follow the trends to the tee and usually puts her flare and style on just about anything she touches. I also adore her marriage lasted ‘upon death do us part’ a staggering 67 years, with her husband Carl sadly passing just before he was due to turn 101 years wise. If you see images of the couple they ooze love, sincerity and gratitude for each other. With several of my friends ending marriages before the year was out, I have to fully bow in this couples legacy of love.

Example is leadership #2 Davina McCall

~ Fridgesays ~ 21 Comments

As we move on with my series, please recap by Clicking for an introduction  to understand what this series is and why I’ve chosen to create it.

I feel a little behind when introducing this UK star, as the BBC did a ‘who do you think you are?’ programme on her (the TV series look into the ancestry of famous peeps), however I have always adored her and even more so since listening to her on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 recently, I actually listened to the podcast version and would totally recommend Davina’s.

Davina McCall was born in 1967 and I have to sit down whilst writing that this means she is half a century, she could give most twenty somethings a run for their money.

 

Davina was the first Big Brother presenter when it first aired in 2001, I was a fan of the first few series but mainly I tuned in to see DM. I also loved her on a show called ‘street mate’ where she would hook couples together on the street. I loved her sense of humour, her presenting skills are in my opinion superior and frankly she has always rocked her locks.

But that isn’t why she has made it into this series, nor is it her traumatic and toxic childhood, or her own battle with narcotics. Don’t get me wrong, these aspects intrigue me (we all like a happy ending) but its her own self doubt and ability to over come it that really makes her sparkle for me. In February 2014, Davina undertook a challenge called ‘Davina – Beyond Breaking Point’,  she also recorded a documentary during seven days of either running, swimming or cycling across the UK to raise money for the UK charity Sports relief. In my initial post I mentioned my distaste for humans, but for me Mrs M seems to epically rock ‘fragile vulnerability’ that consumes so many people. She has complete self doubt, prepares and does it anyway….as an onlooker, it would appear to me that she seems to thrives off of anxiety and I think she often surprises herself with her capabilities, and I like that level of sincerity. I’m not a DVD fitness fan – but I’d buy hers just to watch her smile and seriously, her abdominals are awesome. Not bad for a woman who has battled many dark corners of life.

Her ability to test her body, be a Mum and also have a clear sense of who she is makes her a national treasure. She is relatable and I imagine living with her is much like the Green day track: walking contradiction, she is both weak and strong, sensitive and blunt, fierce and fragile, focused and usually turns up late. Some how though, she gets the balance just right and it works. 

Example is Leadership #1 The old man at the bus stop

~ Fridgesays ~ 29 Comments

A new series with an Introduction to click and read which will hopefully clarify why I am writing about my role models.

I probably should begin with a superstar or a more relatable character, I should also probably have picked someone in my own life who’s name I can recall…alas I have always been a limited edition crayon in the box and have decided to pick The man at the bus stop.

It was around 1998-1999 and I was studying for my A levels, I usually caught a lift with a friend of mine who was on similar courses to me, however as luck would have it there were a couple of occasions when our timetables didn’t synchronise and I would have to get the bus alone. The late nineties were also a time when the walkman was dead, the iPod not yet invented and the mobile phone was a brick…so I usually had on me my CD player for company (for some reason electric devices make us humans feel less alone?), now the CD player for your ‘on the go’ listening needs was, well also crap and you had to hold the player flat so the CD could spin around without skipping. At the bus stop was an old man and he made a joke about my CD player and the fact that it was frustrating me. Raised well, I promptly placed the crap device in my ‘record bag’ (oh the irony) and chatted to him. He explained that he was getting the same bus as me, as on a Thursday he always went to the local day centre. He gets fed for a fiver and basically loves attention from all the ladies. He lived in the elderly peoples home opposite the bus stop and over the coming weeks I would look forward to our chats. At the time I did know his name and he would greet me with “Good morning, I love Lucy” a reference to a black and white American sitcom that I vaguely knew of. We would jump on the bus together and he would chat about what he had been up to and which ‘young’ lady he was hoping to sit next to that day at the day centre. It was during these chats that he would often apologise that he wouldn’t be at the bus stop because of one commitment or another, often it was due to travel – he loved cruises and would come back a week or so later with a tan to die for and tell me about all the ladies he had danced with, the cuisine he had tasted (always better than the food in the retirement home) and the places he had seen. He was a gentleman and a dapper dresser, he was in his late eighties and he taught me a valuable lesson, to never stop living or dancing. In contrast he would also tell me about all the ‘dead’ people that he had left behind in his care home, I wouldn’t always know how to react and he would make me laugh by saying something like ‘don’t worry they will still be asleep in the same chair when I get home”. I promised him that I would keep dancing and its a promise that I will keep until I’m as young as him.

He was also the first man to give me a regret, one that I have been able to let go of as I know he wouldn’t of minded.

The Birthday Bash

He invited me to his 90th birthday party and I didn’t go. I didn’t go because I was seventeen and too cool for my own good, I didn’t go because I thought my friends would think I was weird….I wish I had gone.

A few weeks after his ninetieth birthday he wasn’t at the bus stop. Nor the next week, I knew he wasn’t on a cruise as he would of told me and so I remember vividly speaking to my Mum about it. She advised that I pop into the home and ask if he was ill etc. I knew from our bus jaunts that he was widowed and didn’t have any children / family. I 100% planned to take my Mums advice – seriously if that woman says ‘take a coat’ you know a tsunami is going to hit London, however on the morning that I had planned to ‘pop over’ I noticed his window had altered. The once beige curtains were floral and a vase sat in the centre of the window sill. I didn’t need to ask.

I will always smile when I see a man in freshly polished brogues and I will never forget the wisdom and life he maintained until our last stop together.