Do you have a Sue that influenced you?

© Peter St John Gibson 2009
ipgibson@comcast.net

Think back. Who influenced you as a child, teen, or even recently as an adult, to think or act the way you do today about your health? Someone you still remember?

I’m a healthy man. Only 54 years young. I may never have got on this path if not for Sue.
Sue lived in the same English village as me. Her husband cut my hair. I babysat her kids. Sue was a vegetarian. She was full of energy; smiled often and looked younger than she was. We both adored the outdoors and often rode horses, across the quiet countryside, to the Pub in the next village. You guessed it - we relied on the horses to get us back!

Sue didn’t want to have to fit in, but she did want to fit fitness in. She treated herself well and had a bottomless well of healthy relationships to draw on. Meals at Sue’s cottage fed you physically and emotionally. The lifestyle Sue led became the influence upon which my life has been fed.

Sue taught me that I needed a health philosophy. I had to make choices; question what was in my meals and seek alternative deals. Wonder how healthy where I worked was.
Be careful about how I was influenced by my community, yet still find a way to be an influence in it. That’s why I write.

My writing, and rhyming, is one of the ways I can influence peoples’ days. Prod them to adopt healthier ways; avoid hospital stays and the medical maze.

Johnny Appleseed influenced many Americans by planting apple seeds. He got down on his knees and gave us trees. The seed produces the tree that bears the fruit. It’s a cycle that we are naturally a part of too. Our mothers produce us and our community expects us to bear fruit and make a contribution to the world.

An apple tree provides healthy fruit if its environment is healthy. Are we any different? How we are influenced determines how healthy of an influence we will have on others.

Sue has made my life a healthier one. Her influence may have led me into the business I have run for over ten years: marketing health products. To write a book that invites others to manage their own health – to move their own magnet – and later create The WELLNESS WOMBATS™ to encourage kids to adopt ways that keep them out of the medical maze.

So, think. Why do you manage your health the way you do? Do you have a Sue, or a Drew, that influenced you? If you do, isn’t it your turn now to influence and inspire others to make healthy choices too? Is that something you are willing to do?

About the Author: Peter St. John Gibson
Peter has managed Hotels, restaurants and large-scale corporate events.
He has traveled to over 50 countries and – while pursuing a career in the travel business - successfully herded groups of sales executives to Europe. They all got home safely.
He is a husband, and a father.
His healthy upbringing, in rural England, influenced his pursuit of a healthy lifestyle and his decision to work for himself, as an international wellness consultant distributing health products in over a dozen countries.
He is a Public Speaker and a published author. His latest book Who Moved My Magnet? produced two fun characters and plush toys called The WELLNESS WOMBATS™
The WELLNESS WOMBATS™ are designed to influence kids – and communities - to practice healthy ways and stay out of the medical maze.
Peter St. John Gibson
ipgibson@comcast.net
www.wellnesswombats.com
770 317 1009

Rhyme:

We’re a fast food nation; our kid’s are getting fat.
Isn’t it time we did something about that?
That’s why I’ve created the WELLNESS WOMBATS™
They’re two fun characters whose healthy ways
Can influence kids to stay out of the medical maze.
By word of mouth they’ll create results,
That helps today’s kid’s become tomorrow’s healthy adults.
It’s ick to be sick and under medicines spell.
So, talk to me if you want your community to be well.