FUN DAY CONFIDENCE

"The trick is, to carry that chilled-out pace into this one," said someone, beaming at me. I had just told them about the way time seems slower in Canada.

That pace in this time zone, I thought. Quite right. Easier said than done though.

Nonetheless, at least for today, I thought I might approach the annual Fun Day with a sense of laid-back self-confidence. I read somewhere that if you pretend to be something for long enough, eventually you become it - and this was a perfect opportunity to practice.

We've been running the Calcot Fun Day since 2010. I'm not involved in the nitty-gritty anymore but I do still get to be part of it - which is great, especially on days like today when 2,000 people turn up and the sun shines. Last year, we huddled indoors while the wind and the rain blew tents across the field.

Laid-back self-confidence, I thought to myself. I can do that. So I did. I didn't get there as early as some people did, and with remarkable ease, I slipped away at the end. Some years I'd have stayed until the last vehicle tugged its trailer off the site and the final litter-pickers turned in their black bin bags. Not today. I said goodbye and I made a cool exit across the field and home.

How am I going to keep this up? There was a moment today when someone told me that something I'd explicitly expected to happen, hadn't actually happened, while I was away. In fact, it hadn't happened twice. My heart sank with disappointment - especially at the reason (which I can't go in to). In an instant, I recognised that my brain could leap from disappointment to worry to reaction to plan, if I let it, and that I didn't need any of that kind of leaping. Leaping is stressful and it speeds up the clock, turning chilled-out laid-back self-confidence into hair-pulling stress-bucket. That is not the kind of person I want to be around - and therefore, it is not the kind of person I want to be.

I think you can either be changed by your atmosphere, or you can help to change it. As a result, I should always be asking what it is that I'm bringing to the table.

Anyway, the Fun Day was a huge success. I don't know of anything that went wrong - the sun was brilliant, the light breeze was refreshing, the stall holders all seemed happy and there were hundreds of smiling people milling across the green grass under the blue sky.

I sat for a while in the marquee, chilling out and thinking about all the hours that the team put into making this thing happen. It's a real mistake to think it all depends on us and us alone. More than that though, that kind of selfish thinking leads to enormous stresses and strains as we grab the wheel and try steering big things with our super-strength. That's a real key, because I'm very much like that - I have been very much like that - and it has led to this awful speeding up of the clock. As my manager is fond of saying, It takes teamwork to make a dream work.

Laid-back self-confidence, I said to myself. Laid-back self-confidence. I took a swig from my water bottle and laughed, no longer caring whether anyone heard me.