Category: Personal Management

Leadership, Personal Management

Values and principles

Because we always see and experience 100% of the time through our own eyes, sometimes we may struggle to be truly objective on all issues.
I thought I would begin with that caveat, as I recognise that my rantings are entirely “as I see things” So to my post ……

Through innovation in technology and in how we communicate, we have never had more channels open to us through which to engage and communicate with other people, or not. This is coming to my point; despite the open ubiquitous nature of communications, I have found that rather than improving communications, it has stifled them. There may be many reasons for this and perhaps the very fact that we are spoilt for choice, may well be the issue – communications overload!!!; Perhaps responding to incoming “traffic” has become a firefighting exercise, and if you or your “message” are deemed unimportant to the recipient, then you are possibly going to the bottom of the queue; relegated to the “I’ll deal with it when can” group.
My personal experience of late is that I have seen a rapid surge in periods of deafening silence over not just days, but weeks following commitments to keep me updated. I’m not sure that anyone could argue that this could be viewed as either desirable, or indeed welcome.
Fast forward to some of the social media channels and again it’s a not uncommon experience for an individual or organisation to use, Twitter, for example as a broadcast; automating a series of outbound marketing messages in the hope of hooking some new customers. How they intend to do this is a little puzzling, as I’ve replied a few times to a feed and guess what? Yep, radio silence.
So why is this? Are people so ignorant that they can’t be bothered to respond, or are the tools not in place to support the meteoric growth in channels of communications….. Who knows?

Can I get off my soapbox now before I fall off…

Personal Management

Slow Dance by David L Weatherford

I came a cross this poem and wanted to share it as I thought is was beautiful and inspiring. It is by David Weatherford and can be found on his web site

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
when you ask “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Ever told your child, we’ll do it tomorrow,
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,
’cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it’s like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn’t a race, so take it slower,
hear the music before your song is over.

Leadership, Personal Management, productivity, Social

Will you reach your full potential?

I was showering this morning and began thinking about the year just gone and the coming year ahead. I was thinking about all the well wishes I was receiving and sending and I started to think about some of the language we use and ended up thinking about reaching our full potential. Further thought on this had me delving deeper and asking myself some questions which I would like to pose to you here now- Firstly what exactly is your full potential? How do you measure it and where is the ‘limit’?
I’m still pondering on that one and hope to hear some alternative perspectives and thoughts.
I hope you reach yours and achieve fulfilment 🙂

Business, Leadership, Personal Management, Social

What did you learn in 2009?

I guess we’ve all felt the recession in some form and have felt some pain or seen some benefit, depending upon the business we are in, or the state of our personal finances. Whatever our position, we have seen impact. Often we have no ability to influence what happens to us, but we can absolutely choose how we respond to what happens to us. So I decided to share an abridged version of my 2009.
I left long term employment in October 2008 as a result of taking a redundancy package, and immediately began a consulting assignment. At the start of 2009 I decided to press on and see what business I could become involved in and although not consciously, something far from what I had been doing (it was only later that this realisation came to me).
I became involved in publishing and assessing sales people’s capabilities and fit for specific roles and spread myself so thinly that I found it difficult to explain when asked, what business I was in. During this time I also began to network extensively and learnt much about social media and social networking. I read significantly too and took the opportunity to invest in personal development- training with Delta TCC and completing three INLPTA diplomas: Leadership, Coaching and Sales all were delivered using NLP techniques which provide a platform for enhanced communication with people.

After the summer I came to a realisation that I had much invested in my experiences to date and expertise gained from more than 20 years in the Telecom market place and so I made a decision to return and subsequently found my self a great role to immerse myself in, and am delighted to be doing so.

So what have I learnt? I learnt a huge amount about myself, a lot about people generally, and about human nature, as well as behaviour. I learnt much more about business generally too – certainly more than I would ever have expected to. Overall an invaluable life lesson and absolutely unmissable. I am most definitely a better person, and more heavily armed to take on business than I could ever have hoped to be – PRICELESS

Family, Personal Management, Social

Out of the mouths of babes

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago (Sun 6th Dec) when my wife and I took our two girls (4 years 357 days old and 3 and a half) ice-skating. I am a complete amateur, and hold onto whatever I can in order to stay vertical, whilst my wife whizzes around generally having a ball. This year we hired a “penguin” which children can hang onto as they get familiar with the whole slippery floor experience, and for fun my wife whizzed them around with it one at a time whilst I edged cautiously around the perimeter wall.

At one time, I was holding my eldest daughter’s hand as we crept gingerly around and I said to her that “daddy was useless at this skating lark”, her reply almost floored me there and then “imagine that you were good at it daddy” she said – how good was that? At least I didn’t fall over (SWMBO did though).

No children or adults were hurt during the telling of this short story.

Business, Leadership, Personal Management, Social, training

Vitamins for the Mind : Jim Rohn International

Vitamins for the Mind – Jim Rohn an INSPIRATION

via Vitamins for the Mind : Jim Rohn International.

Business, Personal Management, Social

Whom do you admire? Who is your hero?

This is a question that I have heard asked on many occasions in interviews for jobs, or of celebrities in TV interviews and many times I have listened to the answers without much reflection. There are always the perhaps more predictable responses – famous historic figures and others in the public eye, but the ones that carry most weight for me are the ones where people quote “real” people that they know – especially family members. Having said this, I rarely think much about this. Until now that is – I was just relaxing in my bath and my thoughts turned to recent conversations and the person in mind I started to remember interviewing him for a position in the company I worked for perhaps 10 years ago. I started to recall that I asked him this very question and his response needed no thought – it was his father who turned out to be a man of the church. So why am I blogging about this? The simple answer is that I have often reflected on people I admire and (sadly) for the first time I thought about my parents in this light….and I thought and thought, and you know what I AM absolutely proud and full of admiration for my parents. They brought my brother and I up incredibly successfully – we always had the essentials and were always loved and cared for. Both of my parents had to work to “make ends meet” and there were occasions when things were difficult, but they made sacrifices and made sure my brother and I always had what was needed. They are definitely my heroes, and you can be sure that I will tell them to their faces when I next see them 🙂

Business, Personal Management

When is the right time to invest in training?

The Telecom industry is under-invested in training as a whole. This was the general feedback and view of many attendees of the recent Convergence Summit held at Sandown Park during a panel debate session. So why is this so? Do people generally feel that there is no need to invest in training because they already have all the skills they need to have? I’m sure that most of us need training and do generally welcome it, so why is this the case? Perhaps it’s as simple as not having sufficient training available to them… I’d be interested to know what holds us back in this area, because I know from first hand experience how valuable training is.

Leadership, Personal Management, Social

Are you taking the turn?

There’s a great motivational poster that deals with CHANGE. It says that a bend in the road is not the end of the road UNLESS you fail to make the turn! And boy are there some bends in the road just now! If you are a difference person and therefore change oriented, then all is well, but what about the poor sameness person who likes things pretty much the way they’ve always been? It can be tough, but I offer this for those facing change. It’s not what happens to us, but what you do about it…watch this inspiring video and you’ll see what I mean ...W Mitchell

Personal Management, Social

What is a friend?

And does this change over time?
What I am driving at here is simply that I am sure we all perceive friendship slightly differently and based upon our personal expectations and experiences, may have cause at some time to reflect on this question.
Are those people that you thought were your friends STILL around when you most need them, or are they conspicuous by their absence in your life now you could do with some support and anchors?
I wonder what your experience has been :-)?