Today I am going to self indulge you to death! Tomorrow (Monday) is my 50th birthday and I’m off to do a parachute jump as I promised you guys. I wanted to get back to gratitude because the last few months whilst whining that I don’t want to be 50 and demanding a recount I lost sight of the fact that I have a pretty damn good life. Age is indeed only a number and there is too much good stuff out there for me to be wallowing in self pity. So today I’m going to tell you 50 things that I’m grateful for by way of shifting my focus and hopefully yours too. If you’re up for it you could tell me in the comments one thing you are immensely grateful for. And if anybody says ‘me’ I will blush and then probably delete the comment, be original ;-) So in no particular order,

I am grateful for:

1. My wife and her laughter which is the sweetest sound in the world to me, except when she’s laughing at me of course.
2. My dobermans Tori and Ella who I love to bits.
3. My ability to nearly always be able to see the funny side of things
4. Doing a job I really love
5. Meeting John Strelecky and agreeing to co-write How To Be Rich and Happy
6. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
7. Having a shiny Mac to work on
8. Having health insurance
9. Being born to a mum and dad that always provided for and loved me
10. Great Indian cuisine
11. Living in a climate where I don’t have to look out of the window before I decide whether I can wear shorts or not
12. Tim Gary, Naomi Niles, Louise Varre, Dave Raymond and Amy Harrison for all their help with this site
13. Tony Teegarden, Roy Naim, Bodhipaksa, Michael Heppell, Jonathan Fields, Rob Collins, Dave Fowler, Carl Harvey, Bob Poole, Gareth Rees, Tracy O’Connor and Matt Fox for their help, friendship and support since I moved to the US
14. The fact that even though I will have no doubt forgotten some people that should have been in the list above, they’re good people and will forgive me ;-)
15. Knowing my mums last words were a joke
16. People who let me in in traffic
17. Allowing Helen to talk me into going to see Ted this weekend knowing she only wanted to see it was only because Mark Wahlbeg  was in it – Hysterical and it had Mila Kunis to boot!
18. Finding meditation
19. Sasha for making the sublime Airdrawdagger and the pumping Xpander
20. People that say thank you when I e-mail them free stuff
21. Stumbling upon Life Coaching
22. Having all my senses, limbs and organs in tact
23. Derby County Football Club
24. All my family back in the UK and my friends, especially Nick Elliott my BFF
25. That we didn’t buy a house when we first moved to the US when it was at the top of the market
26. The good old US of A and of course my homeland of Blighty!
27. Lindt Intense Dark Orange Chocolate
28. Having visited over 40 countries
29. The 1999-2002 years for the St Louis Rams
30. Having had some of the best work colleagues when I worked in sales anybody could wish for
31. Jim Jeffries my favorite living comedian and Greg Giraldo may favorite dead one (NSFW or people easily offended)
32. Having a roof over my head
33. Social Media (most of the time)
34. Having owned a record store because that’s where I met my wife and made some great friends
35. The barn and 2 acre paddock where I walk my dogs
36. Outrageous Floridian summer storms
37. My inherent optimism
38. Finding out I had hemachromotosis before it led to pancreatic cancer
39. Sushi
40. Living in extraordinary times
41. Dance clubs (20 years ago!)
42. People who show tolerance in the face of extreme provocation and restore my faith in human nature
43. Being a good rapport builder (thanks dad!)
44. Knowing I’m no better than anybody and no worse
45. Being crap at growing hair – saves loads of time!
46. Being able to make people laugh either with me or at me
47. The Original Herd Message Board for Rams fans
48. Making an offer on our new home on gut instinct and having it accepted literally moments before another offer came in
49. All my clients, even the tricky ones!
50. You, and by that I mean all my blog, book and newsletter readers I wouldn’t be doing this without your amazing support and kind words.

Cheesy? Most definitely. But cheesy is ok if it’s all true, and I could have easily taken that to 100 or even 1,000 if I’d wanted to. Maybe when I hit 100 I’ll do it again. See you on the dark side of fifty, or maybe it isn’t, because as a client said to me last week ‘Welcome to the “Fuck-off Fifties!” you can now officially whatever you want to do” I thought I was already doing that ;-)