• When you learn something new, the brain builds connections between neurons which is great because as we age we lose some.
• We feel better when dopamine is released in the brain and novel experiences reward us with that.
• Repetition in life is like being on autopilot… so time – hours, months, years – seem to fly by. When we break that routine and savour the moments… and then have new experiences to share stories about, the appreciation lives on.
• Researchers at University College London have proved that you can actually be bored to death! Over more than 20 years they followed 7,500 civil servants and they were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease if they described being extremely bored.

When your guard is down and you’re doing things you don’t normally do, the real you appears. The authentic one. The one without the “shop front”. Remember though that as it’s happening to you it’s happening to everyone around you: you get to see the real them.

The real “them” and the real you may appear in the face of failure. Don’t be afraid of this. There will be some experiences where Jo fails, because she’s deliberately selecting some that she hasn’t done before either so there will be an even playing field, so to speak.

The most important thing then is to nurture a growth mind-set by saying “I’ll get better!” rather than the more negative “I’m useless at this!” Carol Dweck, PhD, Stanford University professor of psychology and author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” says that then fosters perseverance and resilience which we can take home with us to increase our vitality for much longer than the time we are together.

Here’s Jo’s first attempt at snowboarding. She hadn’t snow skied for 37 years and took her son to Queenstown in New Zealand recently. She revelled in the fact that she stayed up on her skis after so long. He was keen to try snowboarding though so she thought she would too. She spent a lot of time on the ground and laughed a lot. By the end of an afternoon lesson, she was delighted to get down the slope standing up…albeit slowly and she has a video to prove that she did it!

“I have attended two of Jo Hassan’s clever and charming networking opportunities in the last few months and am delighted to finally have found a fresh way of networking and doing something fun and interesting for myself and my business. 

Tired of the same old meetups and breakfast club banter, I went along to a Sound Bath – not knowing what to expect, and found myself transported to a peaceful space that was simply a wonderful way to recharge my mind and rest my weary self through the use of sound waves.

Then a few weeks later I found myself being educated beyond where I’d have ever expected to be on the subject of quality French Champagne. Among friends, and meeting new people too, I sipped the finest tasting nectar from the grapes, learned about why it really tasted so good, and sparkles met bubbles in the environment of a diamond speciality store.

I love this new way of networking – bugger the breakfasts, I want more of this.  Fun, Fitness, Fresh and Fancy, and a little bit of Frivolity maybe. What a mix!”