Monday 6 June 2011

Fortune Truly Favours The Brave

So a few of you have asked what precisely I mean about the man who is 'real deal' apart from the very obvious he is single, stable, practically baggage free (a real wish list moment from me!) and comfortable with himself.

Aside from intelligence and honesty, he has to be able to face his up to the hard stuff in his life. The challenges which maybe he can't automatically overcome or easily 'solve' in that practical way men do. I'm talking about the really hard 'skeleton in my closet' stuff.

That type of self awareness and ability to own your struggles, but when you are shielded by success, wealth and consequently power, owning up to your frailities, must be very hard indeed.

On Friday, I opened up my paper and saw my very favourite London Mr Big - millionaire Andreas Panayiotou, who is profoundly dyslexic, owned up to not being able to read.

This is a man who is worth close to £400 million pounds and ...he can't read. His plight made me think about all the times I've said I can't do things. All those times I've hear the word No - almost always in a career situation and just accepted it.

As I read further through the article, Andreas talked of how he worked around his 'little problem' - getting his PA to respond to his emails, memorising audio books and signs, so he could feign literary.

His reason for going public, learning the shocking statistic that one in five children of primary school age in Britain, can't read.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where books were standard and can still remember my weekly Saturday visit to the library with my Dad, when I was little.

I can't imagine what my life would be like without being able to read and write and for this I have to raise my hat to Andreas for being 'man enough' to tell his story.

He is an excellent role model, not just to those who believe that they can't succeed, because of their inability to read, but to the rest of us who may just be too scarced to try and overcome our own 'little problems'.

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