I posted a picture of this beautiful Ashley Longshore artwork on my Instagram recently, and judging by the reaction it generated the words resonated just as much with so many others as they did with me when I first saw it in New York last year.
As a long time admirer of Ashley’s work, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to her by a mutual friend and we had a great morning looking through her incredible catalogue of work. As soon as I saw this piece it encapsulated so much that Stuart and I have always believed in. I spoke at our 50th birthday celebration about the importance of seeing every birthday as a gift – a lifetime working in healthcare makes you acutely aware of how much some people would give to see just one more birthday – and not getting caught up on the negatives of ageing that today’s society can perpetuate.
At the time that I saw the artwork it was starting to become clear that the next phase of our lives was going to look a little different to the one that we had planned, but we had no idea then just how messy things were going to get….
As we started to work through what remaining in pharmacy looked like, one of our realisations was that at 53 we both still have plenty of ideas and energy to deploy, and the industry is full of people who could arguably be said to have created their biggest impacts at an age greater than where we are today. Terry and Rhonda White have long been people we looked up to and admired, and they only sold the first Terry White Chemist franchise pharmacy when Terry was 58. Jack Gance, who has completely changed the face of pharmacy in Australia as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Chemist Warehouse Group has just been crowned Australia’s Entrepreneur of the Year by EY at the age of 77, so there’s plenty of inspiration out there without even having to look past our own industry.
We’ve always been big on mantra’s, with ‘Be Positive’ being one of Stuart’s ‘Founders Five’ where he speaks about the almost boundless optimism that separates true entrepreneurs from others, and the intentional commitment to approach every task with your best effort. You can check out the other 4 here, although unsurprisingly when Stuart speaks to values these days he encourages people to be Agile, Responsible and Courageous in line with our Arc31 Family Office approach.
Our beautiful artwork couldn’t have arrived at a better time to provide a daily reminder that ‘Today Is The Youngest You Will Ever Be’, and that there is no point looking back when so many wonderful opportunities still lie ahead.